LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



l^ 



THE PORTIA SERIES 



CHATS WITH GIRLS 



ON 



SELF-CULTURE 



BY 



ELIZA CHESTER. 

AUTHOR OF "girls AVD WOMEN 

NOV 18)091 i 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD, AND COMPANY 

1891 






Copyright, 1891, 
By Dodd, Mead, and Company. 



All rights reserved. 



John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. What is Self-Culture? i 

11. A Word about the Body i8 

III. How SHALL WE LEARN TO OBSERVE . . 23 

IV. How SHALL WE LEARN TO REMEMBER? . 38 
V. How SHALL WE LEARN TO THINK? ... 54 

VI. The Study of Languages 64 

VII. The Cultivation of the Love of 

Beauty 75 

VIII. How SHALL WE READ? 95 

IX. What shall we Read? io6 

X. Travel 114 

XI. The Cultivation of a Sense of Humour 125 

XII. Dull Girls 129 

XIII. Clever Girls -143 

XIV. Moral Culture 153 

XV. The Training of the Will 161 

XVI. Justice and Truth 171 

XVII. A Spirit of Love 182 

XVIII. The Choice of Companions 197 

XIX. The Meaning of our Culture to 

Others 206 



CHATS WITH GIRLS ON 
SELF-CULTURE. 



I. 

WHAT IS SELF-CULTURE? 

ONE summer morning, long ago, I sat in a pleasant 
schoolroom and listened while a group of fine 
young girls in fresh, white dresses read their gradu- 
ating compositions. One of them, whose eyes were 
clear and whose voice was earnest, had chosen as her 
subject the words of Jean Paul, — "I have made of my- 
self all that could be made of the stuff." I have for- 
gotten her composition ; but I think it must have been 
forcible, since after all these years I remember her dig- 
nity of bearing, and the impression of her motto has 
never been lost. It seems to me a worthy introduction 
to the subject of Self-Culture. 

Self- Culture is the education which we give ourselves, 
or in other words, the culture of ourselves by ourselves. 
We have all kinds of material to work upon, and some 
of us have great help from others in our work, but we all 
have to do something. Even a princess, surrounded by 



2 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

teachers from the moment she is born, cannot be cul- 
tivated without doing a part of the work. 

The help of others ought to be a blessing to us, and 
it is so in the case of real help ; but so much that is 
called help is not real, that those who are forced to rely 
on themselves often make the most complete men and 
women. Nevertheless the pronoun I is apt to have an 
unlovely character. Whoever is always saying, " I did 
it," '' I made this of myself," etc., is not very attractive. 
Those who have no culture but self-culture are so in 
danger of being one-sided in their development, that it 
is necessary to sound a note of warning to them at the 
very beginning of this little book. It is certainly our 
duty to make all we can of the stuff. We can often do 
this modestly by following the advice of our parents and 
teachers ; but when we are called upon to take counsel 
of ourselves alone, we have to concentrate our attention 
so much on ourselves that the result may be disastrous. 

" Evelina's conversation is rather exhausting," said a 
lively young teacher. " On the train she explains the 
action of the engine, beginning with the fire under the 
boiler, and never stopping till the steam has passed off 
into space. Coming home from a concert she lets no 
one rest till she has pointed out all the visible constella- 
tions. At Plymouth the other day she insisted on 
relating the entire history of the Pilgrim Fathers, — that 
is, so far as she knows it ; and she always uses French 



WHAT IS SELF-CULTURE? 3 

when an English word would express her idea better. 
Of course it is beautiful that she is so devoted to her 
studies ! " 

Now it happened that Evelina had had few home 
advantages. She had never known the principle of the 
steam-engine till she learned it in a book, and she was 
delighted to find she understood it. Her father and 
mother had never told her the story of the Pilgrim 
Fathers, and she naturally supposed it would be new to 
other people. As for French, she thought that only 
practice would make perfect, without realizing that 
such practice as hers would be likely to make her 
speech all the more imperfect. She was a well-disposed 
girl with a good mind. She would sometime be edu- 
cated, so far as information goes, and perhaps after a 
time she would see that education-^ is something more 
than information. 

It is well to have knowledge at our command, but not 
always well to inflict it upon others, especially if it is of 
a kind they could easily acquire for themselves if they 
had the wish. I knew a teacher so determined to avoid 
pedantry that she made it a rule never to correct any 
mistake made by others outside the schoolroom. 
Indeed, she often indulged in little colloquial errors 
herself, saying she would rather be ungrammatical than 
disagreeable. I should not be surprised if she went too 
far. 



4 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

For why should we not take pleasure in telling others 
the things we know? Is it not amiable to do so? It 
is amiable to tell them what they wish to know ; it is 
even occasionally a duty to tell them what they do not 
wish to know ; but it is never either amiable or a duty 
to tell anything simply to show that we know it. The 
self-educated are most in danger of doing this. The 
girls who learn from cultured mothers and fathers by 
sharing the atmosphere of culture are not so likely to 
"show off" their acquisitions as those to whom such 
acquisitions are less a matter of course. 

Culture of ourselves is an even more important part 
of self-culture than culture by ourselves. We must be 
glad of all the advantages of home and school, of friends 
and society and travel, which come to us without our 
own effort, and then we must make the most of all 
these. 

But why do we wish to cultivate ourselves? Perhaps 
many motives are at work in us. It may be that some 
girl who takes up this book is smarting with a sense of 
injustice. She feels that she is looked down upon by 
those who are not her superiors. She has heard that 
knowledge is power. She has no one to help her, but 
she wants to learn how to help herself that she may win 
her way to a higher position in life. Well, the motive is 
not altogether bad, and yet it is not a noble one. I hope 
that every such girl will win her way, but I hope that her 



WHAT IS SELF-CULTURE? 5 

object in trying to cultivate herself will not be what is 
generally called success. 

A great deal of self-culture comes from a desire to 
make an impression on others. This is especially so 
with women because in them approbativeness is large. 
But what an unworthy motive ! 

Some think of culture as a means of increasing the 
sources of happiness. This is right. We are happier 
when we have the full use of our powers. There is 
a never-failing glory and exhilaration in thinking new 
thoughts and discovering new truth which makes us 
happy in poverty, obscurity, neglect, and pain. Age 
does not dull the keenness of this pleasure. Young peo- 
ple are sometimes impatient because there is so much to 
learn, and the girls for whom I write may not realize that 
what I say is anything more than mere words ; but it is 
true that those who love the things of the intellect unsel- 
fishly find surprises of splendour waiting for them all 
along their pathway to the very end. 

Sometimes the motive for self-culture is the hope of 
being of use to others. This is so lofty that I wish it 
were common ; but it is very rare. 

I believe the true reason why we should wish to be all 
we may be is because the power to become so is put into 
our own hands. This is the little garden-plot which we 
have had given us to beautify. If we neglect it, there will 
always be one blot on the universe, 



6 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

It would still be our privilege as well as our duty to 
"make the most of the stuff" if we were cast away on a 
solitary island and knew we were never more to see a 
human being. If we had any nobleness in us, we should 
still wish to keep our bodies clean and sweet ; we should 
still wish to think and feel truly though we could no 
longer tell the truth ; and to hold ourselves in the attitude 
of love though there was no one of our race to whom we 
could express our love. We could still love God and the 
humble creatures around us ; but more than that, our 
hearts could go out to those we should never see. If it 
were not so, if we failed here, we should also fail when 
living in the world. 

Self-culture is never wholly for ourselves. Intellectual 
and physical culture may in a selfish person end with the 
individual, though even this is seldom true ; but moral 
culture cannot possibly end with self. 

What is the end of self-culture ? 

Perhaps we may turn to our catechism for the answer, — 
''What is the chief end of man ? To glorify God, and 
serve and enjoy Him forever." But this is a general 
though a sublime answer, and we must have definite aims 
if we wish to bring our daily life into harmony with our 
highest conceptions. 

What kind of women do we wish to be ? 

A great deal depends on the answer to this question. 
I suppose that the girls who are most likely to read a 



WHAT IS SELF-CULTURE? 7 

book on self- culture are those who have an intellectual 
bent. Their first thought — at least in reading such a 
book — is how they shall make the most of their minds. 
And yet how few of them, if they stop to think, would 
be satisfied to be simply intellectual women ! 

I remember a girl who had an insatiable thirst for 
knowledge and a mind of wonderful power. She had 
germs of a noble character. She was upright and just. 
Terrible trouble came to her when she was very young. 
She had a desperate struggle with poverty, and the whole 
care of a chronic invalid fell on her delicate shoulders. 
She did her duty faithfully ; she fought her way through 
frightful obstacles ; she gained a thorough education, and 
became at last a learned woman. On the day when the 
news of the taking of Richmond roused the whole coun- 
try, an enthusiastic friend rushed in upon her with the 
cry, "The war is over ! Lee has surrendered ! " " Has 
he?" repHed the young girl, indifferently ; "well, lam 
more interested in this new Hebrew grammar than in 
the war ! " There was so much that was heroic in her 
nature that she inspired respect ; but it was always sad 
to see her, not only because her circumstances were so 
hard, but because she missed so many of the best 
things of life. 

I heard not long ago of a fine young fellow who asked, 
" After all, why do we care so much for culture when 
it only separates us from our kind ? " Certain forms of 



8 CHATS WITH GH^LS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

culture do separate us from our kind ; perhaps most of 
what is commonly called culture does this, but is that 
the culture we are striving for? I hope not. 

Irma, the heroine of Auerbach's great novel, " On 
the Heights," writes in her journal : '' That is the point 
why our modern culture cannot take the place of re- 
ligion ; religion makes all men equal ; culture, unequal. 
There must, however, some day be a system of culture 
which will make all men equal ; then only will it be the 
right and true. We are yet only at the beginning." 

Shall I not describe to the girls who are to read this 
book the kind of woman I believe they wish to be? 

They wish to be as strong and beautiful physically as 
is possible with the bodies which have been given 
them ; they wish to be clear-sighted and intelligent ; 
they wish for wide knowledge, — not to exhibit it, but 
to use it ; they wish to make their accomplishments a 
means of expressing beauty in their every-day lives ; to 
be refined in manner and still more refined in feeling; 
and, above all, to be sweet, fresh, truthful, modest, and — 
again, above all — large-hearted women. 

It is not my province to say much of physical culture, 
but a girl who neglects it does so at her peril. Without 
it she will not only suffer bodily, but she can never be 
mentally or morally what she was meant to be. 

Intellectually, it is best to lay broad foundations. I 
once heard of a young girl who studied Latin two weeks. 



WHAT IS SELF-CULTURE? 9 

She said she just wanted to get an insight into it. I 
do not think she had a keen sense of humour. She was 
laughed at by other people ; but I have sometimes won- 
dered whether her study was necessarily in vain. If 
she fancied she knew anything of Latin, then she was 
superficial ; but in two weeks an average scholar might 
easily learn something of the way Latin differs from Eng- 
lish, and might in consequence look at many problems of 
language and literature, and even of history, more wisely. 

A slight knowledge of a subject is not always a super- 
ficial knowledge. A lady who was a botanist spent an 
afternoon in explaining to a friend something of the 
structure of mosses, showing her especially how the 
whole kingdom of these exquisite little plants is domi- 
nated by the plan of four. " Oh," cried the enthusiastic 
listener, " I feel as if I had had a glimpse into a new 
world ! " One afternoon could not make the student a 
botanist, but it could give her large thoughts about 
plants. 

I once heard a young girl give a reason for wishing to 
graduate from a good school, though she was poor, and 
sacrifices were required to keep her there for the last 
few months. " I know well enough," she said, " that 
another term in school will not ' complete my educa- 
tion ; ' but I have always thought I should like to take a 
full course of study and know a little of all the sub- 
jects which the older and wiser people who planned 



10 CHATS WITH GH^LS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

the course considered a necessary foundation for an 
education." 

This careful laying of a symmetrical foundation is not 
like the feverish rushing from one thing to another 
which characterizes so many girls. '^ I am too busy to 
go to see you," said a friend on the street not long ago. 
" It is because I have my living to earn, and not be- 
cause I am tearing round like mad after culture, like 
everybody else in Boston." 

And now, how can we cultivate ourselves? It is the 
purpose of the following pages to make some practical 
suggestions in answer to this question. It is not my in- 
tention to present an exhaustive plan of self-culture, yet 
I have wished the outline of this little book to be some- 
what comprehensive, because I feel that a one-sided 
development is an injury to any one. I think that the 
cultivation of the physical, the mental, and the moral 
natures should go hand in hand. There are some prin- 
ciples of growth which may be applied equally to all 
these three cases, others which can be best understood 
by studying them in connection with some special form 
of culture. 

In this preliminary chapter I will speak of things 
essential to any self-culture, whether of the body, the 
mind, or the heart. 

A wise normal- school principal was accustomed to 
begin his instructions to his pupils by telling them that 



WHAT IS SELF-CULTURE? II 

the first requisite in getting an education was to be 
teachable. Nobody can help a scholar whose attitude is 
that of self-sufficiency. No one learns from even the 
best teacher without being willing to learn. Any in- 
structor will tell you that when a class is made up of 
indifferent scholars, it is impossible for him to treat the 
subject of the lesson in the most interesting way, no 
matter how conscientiously he may try. On the other 
hand, there are pupils so full of eagerness to be taught 
that even a commonplace teacher feels a glow of inspira- 
tion with 4;hem, and thinks of a thousand new illus- 
trations to make the subject clear. " I always enjoy 
any class when Miss Frost is in it," said a teacher. 
" She is not brilliant, but she is so interested in all I say, 
that I feel like saying the best things." I have heard of 
a lady who loved poetry who would never teach litera- 
ture to her pupils because they were so unappreciative 
that she said she felt as if it would desecrate any poem 
to mention it to them. No doubt she was partly to 
blame herself, but you see how each one may be in a 
measure responsible for what others give to her. 

Even if a teacher's ardour were not influenced at all 
by the carelessness of the listeners, yet no one will learn 
who is not wilHng to be taught. If we think that we 
know already everything worth knowing, we are not 
likely to add much to our knowledge. If we approach 
the very humblest of our teachers in a spirit of criticism, 



12 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

we do not get from such an one even the Httle which 
might be given us. 

Some one may fancy that teachableness is not neces- 
sary in self-culture ; but it is more important for those 
who must work much alone than for others who have 
pastors and masters appointed them, because those who 
have few to help them are most in danger of relying on 
their own narrow view of a subject. No one is so un- 
fortunate as to be entirely without teachers. At the 
very worst we can still turn to books with a teachable 
spirit. But as a matter of fact, any one who is teach- 
able can usually find a teacher, though not always in the 
formal sense of the word. For instance, an ill- educated 
young girl thinks she would like to speak better EngHsh, 
but she cannot go to school. Now, she probably knows 
some one who speaks well. Perhaps it is her rector, or 
her employer, or even some companion. If she chooses 
to pay attention to this friend's manner of speech, she 
is sure to improve, though the friend may be quite un- 
conscious of giving any help. Suppose she would like 
to know something of literature, but cannot buy books. 
She is undoubtedly acquainted with somebody who 
would be glad to lend her a volume of Shakspeare, and 
until she has learned that by heart, she need not be 
troubled by her narrow surroundings. 

Most of us, however, are not reduced to such extrem- 
ities, We have a wealth of opportunity to choose from ; 



WHAT IS SELF-CULTURE? 1 3 

and it must never be forgotten that those who have 
every advantage that money can buy, and all the culti- 
vated friends and teachers who work directly and 
indirectly in their behalf, still have the duty of self- 
culture laid upon them even more imperatively than 
their less fortunate fellow-creatures. The young girl 
who sits through a classical concert with the utmost pro- 
priety, but who spends her time in examining the bon- 
nets of her neighbours, or in thinking over the last party, 
gets no culture from the music, though she may be able 
to discuss the performers, and say that the soprano had 
a voice like a steam-whistle, and that the piano was out 
of tune. A poorer girl who could not go to the concert 
may envy her, and wish that she too were a connoisseur, 
but that is simply because she does not know what she is 
envying. Unless we use our opportunities, we have not 
the spirit of culture, and any true growth is impossible. 

Teachableness, however, is not the only quality essen- 
tial to self-culture. We must know how to choose our 
teachers. That means that we must be self-reliant, — 
and for a moment some one may think that this spirit 
is exactly opposed to teachableness ; but self-reliance is 
not self-sufficiency. 

We are not all capable of choosing the best teachers. 
A little child, for example, has not much judgment. 
Some of us never can depend on our own judgment. It 



14 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

is right that we should be modest. If we have good 
reason to think that one of our friends is wiser than we 
are, we must take counsel of that friend. Nevertheless, 
if we cannot choose our teachers well, it may sometimes 
be a positive disadvantage to us to be teachable. To 
illustrate : there was once a young girl with a great musi- 
cal endowment. She lived in a village where there was 
little musical culture. She took some lessons of an 
agreeable young lady who was considered the best musi- 
cian in the place. By and by she found her voice failing 
unaccountably. She decided to go away to a distant city 
and study with a distinguished master. The master told 
her that all she had hitherto learned was a hindrance 
rather than a help to her, for her teacher had not under- 
stood the need of correct breathing, and she had formed 
bad habits. The young girl went to work with a will to 
overcome her faults ; but after she had been struggling a 
long time, her master told her one day very gently that 
he had never had a pupil whose faults were so ingrained, 
and who would require so much time to eradicate them. 
" If you had not been so determined to do your best, 
and to follow your teacher's directions exactly," he said, 
"you would never have learned these false ways so 
thoroughly ! " Then they both laughed, but the pupil 
could not help crying at the same time. " Suppose I 
should be making the same kind of a mistake again?" 
she said roguishly. "Sure enough," said the master. 



WHAT IS SELF-CULTURE? 1 5 

" Well, think the matter over, and see if you can't decide 
for yourself whether to follow my directions." She 
thought for a while and then said, " When I was at home, 
I always felt tired after a lesson, and I grew more and 
more tired as time went on ; but with you I find it is 
easier and easier to use my voice. So I think I shall risk 
doing exactly as you tell me." 

Every one of us must love the girl better for her faith 
in her first teacher and her zeal in obeying her. She 
certainly gained in moral culture by her docility, for she 
had chosen the teacher she believed to be best. Still 
her want of discrimination had involved a great loss 
musically. In this case it was inevitable. No one could 
expect a young girl under the circumstances to do better. 

I have before said that we could not get the best 
which even the humblest could give us by approaching 
the teacher in a spirit of criticism ; and yet we must 
exercise some criticism or we shall always be following 
blind guides. How can we reconcile these two facts? 
It seems to me we must choose the teacher we believe 
to be best and then give him a fair chance. If he tries 
to explain something to us, let us try to understand, 
instead of wondering if some one else could not ^o bet- 
ter. When he has done all he can, and we have done all 
we can, and still we have not mastered the difficulty, we 
must seek for another teacher. We must, however, be 
modest enough to acknowledge that the fault may be in us. 



1 6 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

j Yet it may be in the teacher. Perhaps you may say that 
this was substantially what our little singer did, and that 
she suffered in consequence. That is true. It is not given 
to most of us to learn our lessons without suffering. But 
her docility proved a gain in the end. For though it took 
her so long to conquer her faults that many a fellow- 
student less highly endowed outstripped her at first, yet 
her habit of persevering work enabled her to overcome 
at last; and then this same habit gave her the power 
to learn true methods of singing with the same thorough- 
ness, so in the end she did make of her superb voice " all 
that could be made of the stuff." A friend of hers who 
took life very easily, and who practised or not according to 
the mood, seemed for some years to be a much more 
successful musician ; but her careless habits always went 
with her, and she never became really great. 

We do want the best teachers in everything. It is a 
very delicate matter to know how to choose them ; but 
the first essential is to desire the best. Our power of 
choosing is the measure of the degree of culture we have 
reached. Of course those of us who have had few ad- 
vantages will make a great many mistakes ; but there is 
one direction in which we need not make mistakes. We 
always win a moral victory when we try to do the best, 
even if we are mistaken in what we do. 

There must be many girls who have already realized 
that in every effort to nourish the moral nature there is 



WHAT IS SELF-CULTURE? \J 

unbounded help from an unseen power. There must be 
many who are surprised to find so much help when their 
own efforts are so weak and few. If there are some who 
do not yet know this truth from their own experience, I 
cannot prove it to them. But we can all prove it to 
ourselves, by making such an effort ; for then we always 
touch a chord which vibrates through the whole universe. 
The help waiting for us is so mighty that our feeblest 
aspiration is never without a response. 



II. 

A WORD ABOUT THE BODY. 

THE girls who are willing to read a volume on Self- 
culture are the very ones most likely to need 
bodily culture. Yet I shall not say much about it here, 
partly because other volumes of this series deal with it 
more fully, and partly because special training is often 
needed to counteract special defects, and this calls for a 
physician or a gymnast. 

I cannot omit the subject altogether, however, for it is 
of vital importance ; at least, it is necessary to be well. 
Moral culture, it is true, is possible, though difficult, for 
the most helpless invalid ; but intellectual labour de- 
mands a sound body. A girl who knows she is injuring 
her health by study must be willing to restrain her 
ardour ; if not, she will become a burden to herself and 
to everybody else, to say nothing of the fact that she 
will not even accomphsh her object. It would be a 
good plan, however, for her to make sure that it is work 
which is hurting her. I do not think young people 
often over-study ; but many school-girls are careless 



A WORD ABOUT THE BODY. I9 

about taking proper food or exercise or fresh air; and 
many more ruin their health by parties and late hours ; 
while there is, alas ! a large class who study selfishly, 
from ambition alone, who worry so much over their 
lessons that every one takes it for granted that the 
lessons themselves are injurious. If you study with the 
true aim of making "the most of the stuff," it is easy 
to be serene, even when the stuff proves cotton instead 
of silk ; or, to drop the metaphor, when you find that 
your faithful efforts still leave you at the foot of your 
class. If you mean to make the most of yourself, it will 
be easy, too, to give the body its due share of attention. 

Those of us who are born invalids must bear our 
cross patiently, but those of us who begin life well are 
usually to blame if we do not continue to be well. 

I must insert a word here for the sake of the poor 
girls who have but a limited time to study, and who 
believe that if in that time they fail to gain a diploma, 
or to set some other definite seal upon their work, it 
may change their whole course of life. Their tempta- 
tion is great. With care in other directions, they may 
be able to study as much as they hope to do ; but if 
not, still it will not do to give up health. It would be 
better to work in a factory all one's days with a healthy 
body, and the sunny spirit which is apt to accompany it, 
with a love for books and a determination to make the 
most of spare minutes, than to take honours at college, 



20 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

and then, breaking down, to become a querulous invalid 
for the rest of one's days, — though I do not mean that 
I look on a factory life as either agreeable or healthful 
in itself. 

As most of us cannot be even well without care, the 
preservation of health certainly forms a part of the sub- 
ject of physical culture ; but from culture, in its strict 
sense, we always hope for improvement. Can we im- 
prove our bodies, or must we accept them exactly as 
they are given to us? I am inclined to think the body 
can be improved. The great trouble is, that after we 
reach full maturity physical change is almost impossible ; 
and where are the old heads on very young shoulders 
necessary if there is to be any improvement in early 
youth? Luckily, there are often parents and teachers 
at hand to guide, and docility is a virtue generally 
admitted to be a peculiar ornament of a young girl. 

Moreover, some change is possible even for older 
people ; probably more than we think, if we only had 
the heart to try for it. For instance, statistics show that 
the brain measurements of the uneducated do not in- 
crease after the age of twenty-one, yet they do so per- 
ceptibly among college students. If exercise can affect 
the brain, why not other parts of the body ? 

I know a child of five years who has some symptoms 
of lung disease. She already takes an intelligent interest 
in daily practising light gymnastics for the expansion of 



A WORD ABOUT THE BODY. 21 

the chest, and in breathing long draughts of fresh air. 
She may not conquer her constitutional tendency, but 
I think she will. There is little doubt, so physicians 
are beginning to say, that many an older person who is 
believed to be doomed to consumption might ward off 
the terrible disease by proper breathing and a carefully 
regulated diet. 

Those of us who have studied the rudiments of physi- 
ology know in a general way that we must keep the 
digestive organs in good order by food of the right kind 
and amount ; that we shall thus be supplied with good 
blood, provided we always breathe enough pure air ; and 
that plenty of exercise will keep our muscles vigorous. 
But most of us have some weakness in our constitution, 
and we always count on that to interfere with all our 
plans. We need to find out our particular defect, and 
try to cure it. Sometimes we can do that for ourselves. 
I know a man of splendid physique who was a narrow- 
chested boy. He says that he brought about the 
change by simply throwing his shoulders back slowly and 
forcibly a few times every day for several years. 

Our defect, however, is often of such a nature that we 
need help to cure it ; probably the services of a physician 
are seldom required. The gymnasium would often be 
sufficient if the teacher could make an individual study 
of each case. Just what can be done, I must not 
venture to say ; but certainly it is not our duty to be 



22 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

resigned to any flaw in our body until we have faith- 
fully tried to mend it. 

Manual training is fast becoming a part of regular 
school discipline ; and those of us who must train our- 
selves should remember that if we would be of use in 
the world, we need useful hands, and that if we wish to 
help in making the world beautiful we must have accu- 
rate hands. It is hard to teach ourselves, but we can 
demand nice and complete work of ourselves in what- 
ever we do, even if we simply have beds to make or 
dishes to wash. I was pained not long ago to see a 
young girl who had a genuine love of beautiful pictures 
turning over the leaves of a fine book of photographs 
with such careless hands that I trembled for the corners. 
I think the rich are even more careless than the poor in 
such ways ; but as they replace their soiled and battered 
treasures more frequently with something new, their 
faults are less perceptible. 



III. 

HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO OBSERVE? 

" 1\ /r Y girls are going abroad this summer," said a 
•^ '^ -■- gentleman. " Martha will see everything, and 

Mary will see only what she goes to see ; but then, Mary 

will know best what she wants to see." 

The world over we find this distinction between the 

natural observers and the natural thinkers. When the 

two are combined we have genius. 

To the girls who see everything I have only a few 

words to say at this point : — 

1. Take pains to look at the things worth seeing. 

2. Take time to think about what you see. 

Let me illustrate these rules by the case of two girls 
who both had remarkable powers of observation. They 
were visiting a friend who invited them to take a drive. 
One of them suggested that they should go to a historic 
spot in the vicinity which she had read about. The 
other stipulated that they should drive through the prin- 
cipal streets of the city on their way. In the evening, 
while talking over their drive, the latter electrified every- 



24 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

body by appearing to know who lived in every house 
they had passed. She had observed the door-plates and 
had asked questions. She remembered who lived in 
the brick houses with bay windows and in the stone 
mansions with porticos. She remembered the monu- 
ment they had visited, too ; but her interest in it was 
languid, and her ideas of the event it celebrated 
confused. 

The other guest remembered the houses equally well, 
but she had not noticed whether Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones 
lived in some commonplace structure. On the other 
hand, she knew the historic ground inch by inch, and 
slipping away to the library, went over the narrative 
again while the details were fresh in her mind. 

Both these girls had the faculty of seeing everything. 
One of them used it as a means of culture and the other 
did not. Most persons, even among those who are con- 
sidered observing, see only certain things. 

I once heard a city boy say, " There is nothing to see 
in the country." A country boy of about the same age 
confided to me his opinion that there was nothing to see 
in the city. 

A gentleman and lady, both enjoying Nature, were 
driving through the woods one day when the gentleman 
said, " What an eye you have for flowers ! I have n't 
seen one of those you have mentioned for the last half- 
hour ! " The lady laughed. ^'What an eye you have 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO OBSERVE? 2$ 

for rabbits and other 'small deer'!" she said. "I 
have n't seen one this whole afternoon." 

So it will be clear that unless we have some definite 
training in observation, we shall not see half we should 
like to see. 

How can we learn to observe ? 

I remember the heroine of a novel who describes her 
own education. She was sent out every day to take a 
walk, and when she came in she was expected to de- 
scribe fully and accurately everything she had seen. 
Such practice is good, and within the reach of everybody. 
Even a solitary individual can think over what she has 
seen, and if she finds the mental picture misty, she can 
go to the same place again and observe more carefully. 
Still, I am so great an enemy to the waste of any force 
that I should not think it worth while to spend strength 
in trying to observe everything ; I should rather look at 
things which would bear some fruit in thought. 

Any science studied in a rational way is a positive 
help to one who is learning to observe. Those girls 
who can have teachers, and who are aware of being un- 
observant, should study at least one science faithfully 
with a good instructor. But as I am writing especially 
for those to whom self-culture means culture by them- 
selves as well as of themselves, I will describe a few 
methods of working. 

The sciences most accessible to those who must 
study alone are, I think, botany and mineralogy. 



26 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

I knew a young lady living in the country who wished 
to understand botany, but who had no teacher. She 
bought Gray's *' Lessons in Botany," — a small book, 
clearly written, — and thoroughly mastered it. She veri- 
fied everything so far as she could : she planted beans 
and watched their growth; she looked at the shrubs 
about the garden to see whether they multiplied by suck- 
ers or stolons ; she noticed how seed-pods were formed, 
and found out for herself the difference between a black- 
berry and a strawberry. She gathered leaves and com- 
pared their shapes with those described by Gray, and 
soon learned the technical names. 

By the time she had finished the book she had formed 
the habit of seeing a thousand details of vegetable life 
which had formerly escaped her, though she was observ- 
ing. Then she took Gray's ^' Manual of Botany." This 
is a large volume full of scientific descriptions which are 
so apt to daunt the beginner that perhaps most girls 
could do better with the ^' Field and Garden Botany " of 
the same author, though this is much less complete. Our 
student worked with the artificial key; and beginning 
with a few common flowers whose English name she 
knew, and tracing them till she found their Latin syno- 
nyms and saw how they were related to other species, 
she finally learned how to classify and name any unknown 
flower she might encounter. She soon became an expert 
in this fascinating work. Of course she made blunders. 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO OBSERVE? 2/ 

Of course she found words she did not understand ; but 
she looked for these faithfully in the glossary, and as she 
had to apply her definition on the spot to the flower in 
hand, she learned it practically, and seldom had to look 
for the same word twice. It was a pleasure to find out 
the name of a flower ; but it was something more than 
that, for the necessity of examining every part to make 
sure that the specimen agreed with the description 
brought out many a beautiful feature which would other- 
wise have been unsuspected. In short, our young friend 
learned to observe. 

A lady who has a world-wide reputation for what she 
has accomplished in science said to me once, " Oh, I 
studied botany in the old-fashioned way, — analyzed and 
pressed three hundred flowers ! You know we do not 
consider that botany at all now. Nevertheless some of 
that old-fashioned study is a very necessary foundation 
for real scientific work." 

It has always seemed to me that we should learn to 
use our eyes well before we spent much time over a 
microscope, though that is an instrument which endows 
us with a new sense. I have always thought, too, 
that we must learn to know something of individual 
flowers before we could get much real mental nourish- 
ment from the delightful eflbrt to comprehend their rela- 
tionships or from our guesses at the history of their 
development. I hope, indeed, that every girl who 



28 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

decides to learn a little botany for herself will by and by 
own a fine microscope, and that some time she may 
study the science philosophically ; but at first I think the 
outHne I have indicated will be enough for her, and it 
will be impossible for her to follow it without learning to 
observe some things. She will see more and more. At 
last she will probably seem to her companions to 
have what an old professor of botany used to call the 
"top eye," because she will see so much that they 
miss. 

The field is inexhaustible. I knew a lady who had 
taught botany for some years — and had taught it 
well — who once spent a few weeks of leisure at home, 
and in the time found one hundred and eighty species 
of plants before unknown to her in her father's own 
small field and orchard ! 

Hugh Miller is the most illustrious example of a self- 
taught geologist. He was a stone-cutter, poor, and know- 
ing no one who could teach him. He made a collection 
of all the different kinds of minerals he found in the 
course of his stone- cutting, and being ignorant of their 
names, he labelled them i, 2, 3, etc. He examined and 
compared them till he knew their properties perfectly ; 
and when several years later he was able to buy a book 
on mineralogy, all the numbers fell into place as by magic, 
— he had nothing to do but to substitute the names 
quartz, feldspar, tourmaline, etc., for the numbers he had 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO OBSERVE? 29 

used so long. He had real genius, and was capable of 
seeing for himself some of the laws which govern facts ; 
but even a simple girl who wished to know about minerals] 
could learn something by following his plan. 

It is easier, however, to get help now than it was in 
his day. Some one who was about to spend ten cents 
for a Christmas card to send to a friend remembered 
that this friend was interested in looking at stone-walls, 
and mailed to her instead a little pamphlet on mineralogy 
by Mrs. Richards of the Boston Institute of Technology. 
The young girl receiving it saw that its brief pages were 
full of instruction for her. She showed it to two or three 
other girls of similar tastes, and they formed a little club 
for studying mineralogy with specimens. As they went 
on, they bought a few larger books, — Dana, Brush, etc., 
— and they soon became better mineralogists than most 
girls who study the subject in school. They learned to 
see everything about their own homes. As the analysis 
of minerals by Dana's or Brush's method required more 
knowledge of chemistry than they had, they contented 
themselves with Crosby's little book of "Tables," which 
deals chiefly with simple physical tests. They also 
studied rock-structures with the aid of another little 
book of Professor Crosby, "Science Guide No. 12," 
published by the Boston Natural History Society. The 
volume costs forty cents, and a hundred typical minerals 
which illustrate it two dollars more. I give these details, 



30 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

thinking that some other girl may like to follow their 
example. I should not of course wish to have any 
one think that I suppose it is necessary to study exactly 
in this way to develop one's powers of observation ; 
but this is one way that has been tested, and so it may 
prove to be a help to somebody. 

I have known several girls who learned something of 
ornithology, and increased their observing faculty greatly, 
by simply walking in the fields and woods and listening 
to the birds. At first the vocal concert seemed bewilder- 
ing; then they began to distinguish the different per- 
formers ; then they would be fortunate enough to see 
one of the singers ; and by this time they would be ready 
to concentrate their attention so that they could give a 
fair description of the bird. Now all that was wanting 
was the name. Perhaps they could not find that out for 
a long time, though one who has access either to a good 
i»useum or to illustrated books on ornithology need have 
little difficulty. None of these girls were very scientific. 
They did not know which way the arch of the aorta 
turned in passing from the heart of a bird, — though 
that is a matter of real interest, — nor even the relation 
of the two stomachs ; but they had learned to observe, 
and the world was fuller to them in consequence. 

Modern teachers of botany and zoology insist not only 
on the study of the objects themselves, but that the 
pupil should endeavour to draw what he sees. " You 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO OBSERVE? 3 1 

must observe to draw," says one of them. And that is 
true, — not only in scientific studies, but in every depart- 
ment. Even if we do not know how to draw according 
to any rule, the attempt to reproduce what we see always / 
helps us to see, and so drawing must be a branch partic- / 
ularly recommended to those who wish to improve their 
powers of observation. This kind of drawing is possible 
without a teacher, though of course it is better to have 
instruction. 

One of Mrs. Whitney's heroines, speaking of a visit to 
Italy, says that her crude attempts to copy some of the 
Madonnas were worth everything to her, because she 
saw so much more in the picture in consequence. 

All art study affords training in observation, and par- 
ticularly in observation of the beautiful, so that it is of 
the highest value. We want to learn what to see quite 
as much as how to see. I remember visiting once the 
exhibition- room of a much-praised artist, and being struck 
by the vitality of the pictures. Every motion and atti- 
tude of the figures expressed life. I asked an acquaint- 
ance, who was a good judge of pictures, how he Hked 
the exhibition. " It is wonderful ! " he said, '' but I do 
not care for it, because the artist seems to have no per- 
ception of beauty." I felt that the criticism was just, 
and it seemed almost a pity that such powers of observa- 
tion and expression should be spent on inferior objects. 
Now, a girl working by herself cannot become an artist. 



32 CHATS WITH CHRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

but I think any one can learn to look at the world with 
something of an artist's eye simply by daily selecting 
the most beautiful point within one's horizon, and trying 
to remember it perfectly with the eyes shut. In the 
same way we may learn to know pictures accurately. 

As the senses furnish the avenue to convey impressions 
of the outside world to us, they must be cared for. We 
must not strain our eyes, lest they fail us, nor may we 
allow ourselves to take cold lest our ears should grow 
dull. More than this, we must cultivate our senses. 

I once knew a young girl whose senses were of little 
use to her. They were apparently perfect as bodily 
organs, but they did not seem to belong to her. She 
was always busy thinking. While taking a walk she 
would reflect upon the fall of the Roman Empire or 
the rise of the Dutch Republic. She believed in fresh 
air, but was often unconscious of ill odours. She had 
a good appetite, but could not tell when her food 
was well cooked. 

This young girl had a strong desire for all kinds of 
knowledge. She studied botany and geology and orni- 
thology. By and by she became a delightful out-door 
companion. She saw the tiniest flowers hidden in long 
grass. She knew the colouring and the structure of every 
stone in the wall. "Without a gun," she had named 
" all the birds " by their songs. Yet she was as stupid 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO OBSERVE? 33 

as ever in a city street. She never could tell what 
fashions the ladies were wearing, she never noticed the 
shop windows, and she was always losing her way. All 
of us who are not absolute dunces can " see what we go 
to see," and her training in the sciences had simply 
enlarged the circle of things that she looked at inten- 
tionally. She had trained her eyes and ears to report 
more readily to the brain than formerly. I do not know 
that the organs themselves had changed. 

After this it fell to her lot to keep house for a while. 
" I pity her husband," said her sister, " for she will never 
know when the bread is sour." Strange to say, however, 
she set an excellent table. It was one of her principles 
that everybody should have wholesome food. It had 
never before been her responsibility to provide it. Now 
that it was so, she turned her attention to what she ate, 
and soon discovered the diiference between good food 
and bad. She was accustomed to say that it seemed as 
if new papillae had come into being on the surface of 
her tongue, because it was now easy for her to detect 
tastes which once it was impossible to distinguish even 
when she concentrated all her energies on the task. 
Perhaps some physiologist will tell us whether she was 
right. 

It was on account of the same application of principle 
to life that she learned to put to rout all bad smells that 
invaded her house. " A housekeeper should cultivate 

3 



34 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

her nose as she does her character," says a friend. Our 
heroine did this, and achieved success. '•' But in other 
people's houses, where I can cast off care," she would 
remark, '' I am as unconscious as ever when anything 
is wrong." 

We say that the power to enjoy involves an equal 
power to suffer, which is probably true ; but it does not 
follow that those who enjoy most must actually suffer 
most. I know a woman keenly alive to the fragrance of 
flowers who says she is seldom troubled by evil odours. 
" I always put myself out of the path of every breeze 
that is laden with foulness," she says, '^ while I always 
turn toward the ' south wind that comes o'er gardens ; ' 
so I get all the pleasure, and little of the pain, that 
comes from an acute sense." But perhaps the sense or- 
ganules of the nose which take note of bad odours are 
not the same as those which perceive pleasant ones. 
At all events, the keenest scented dogs seem incapable 
of noticing beautiful perfumes. So it may not even be 
true that in increasing our power to enjoy we increase 
our power to suffer. By diligently cultivating agreeable 
sensations, it may be we render ourselves callous to 
disagreeable ones. 

What is a musical ear? Many persons of quick hear- 
ing cannot distinguish musical tones with certainty. 
Physiologists suggest that of the thousands of little hairs 
which line the interior of the ear, each may vibrate to 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO OBSERVE? 35 

some one tone, while it is probable that the musical 
notes are appreciated in but one division of the ear. 
Very likely this part of the ear is furnished with fewer 
hairs in the case of unmusical people than with others. 
How is it then that by attention to good music, by 
always hearing it and practising it, so many people do 
really learn to distinguish tones ? Can there possibly be 
a change in the ear itself? No doubt the best explana- 
tion is that the brain learns how to receive the impres- 
sions on the tympanum. There is the same question in 
regard to discriminating tints in colour. It is pretty 
well proved that the cultivated eye has a different sense- 
lining from the uncultivated one. And Tyndall tells 
us that each generation adds something to the organ 
itself. 

We also learn from the scientists that there are in- 
cipient senses. These seem to be developed by culti- 
vation. I do not know that the power of finding 
one's way can be called a special sense, yet the differ- 
ence between people would almost make us believe it. 
This would be a sense of such practical value that it is 
worth some pains to cultivate it. Most of us try to 
make up for our deficiencies in this respect by tracing 
our way upon maps, and that does help us. Others say 
it is all a matter of observation, and that one could learn 
to do as well as another. I have always wondered if 
some persons were not born with a correct idea of the 



36 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

points of the compass, for after all everything depends 
on our ability to turn in the right direction. I have a 
theory that the powers of the stupid might be improved 
by carrying a pocket-compass. Of course all improve- 
ment is easiest for the young, and if any girl who reads 
these words is aware that she has no organ of " locaUty," 
I really wish she would try the following experiment for 
a year. First, let her fix the points of the compass in 
her own home ; then whenever she goes away from it, 
even for a short walk, let her see if she still has them 
in her mind, by comparing her idea of them with the 
compass itself. It could not do her any harm, and 
would probably do some good ; she might not create 
a new sense, but she certainly would become more 
observing. 

The line between the sense itself and the power of 
observation is hard to draw. I knew a young lady who 
became partially deaf, but it was a long time before any 
one but her aurist knew it, for she was so clever and 
quick-witted that she watched others, and learned from 
their motions and expression what they said. An oculist 
said to a friend the other day, "■ Ah, you do not tell me 
the truth ! You cannot really read at that distance ; 
you are one of those who read with the will and not 
with the eyes." She was surprised, but when suitable 
glasses were fitted to her she found he was right. 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO OBSERVE? IJ 

So something more than the senses or than observa- 
tion must ahvays be allowed for in what we see and 
hear, taste, smell, and touch. There is a certain 
moral element in observation. Let us decide hence- 
forth to see not only what we go to see, but what 
we ought to see. 

Acting on this principle, girls would oftener see when 
their mothers look tired, or when they are in their 
brothers' way. I once knew a quiet girl who never 
seemed to be observing anything, yet when a chair was 
needed she was always ready to set it in place ; she 
always opened the door when any one whose hands were 
full wished to pass ; and in a crowded room she could 
find for herself the corner where she was least likely to 
be a stumbling-block for others. Perhaps she could not 
have told you what everybody wore, but I think she 
understood the true uses of the observing faculty. 



IV. 

HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO REMEMBER? 

FEW in these days are inclined to glorify the mem- 
ory at the expense of the other mental faculties. 
I heard a lady say not long ago, in reference to a young 
girl who had come into her school with extravagant 
recommendations from former teachers, " She has abil- 
ity; that is, she can learn by the yard, but I doubt 
whether she has real intellect." The capacity to learn 
by the yard, however, is not to be despised, if it is not 
allowed to overshadow more important powers. For 
instance, we might choose to have good judgment rather 
than a good memory. Nevertheless, if we could not 
remember the facts we were to judge, our judicial pow- 
ers, admirable as they might be, would prove rather 
unfruitful. Memory should have its own honourable 
place in our mental equipment. It converts our vari- 
ous observations into available knowledge, ready to 
be acted upon by the judgment. First, we must see 
clearly, then we must remember accurately, then we 
must judge truly. 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO REMEMBER? 39 

Some of us may be able to remember all kinds of 
things without difficulty, but most of us are not so en- 
dowed ; and therefore, since we must concentrate our 
efforts on learning a few of the many things we should 
like to know, it is well to consider what we most wish to 
retain before we make plans how to accomplish our 
object. 

First, we want to remember whatever it is our duty to 
remember. 

As our duties differ, I will not say much in detail on 
this head. I have heard of a lady so engrossed in study 
that she forgot to see that dinner was provided for the 
family ; I have no doubt she enjoyed some sublime 
thoughts meantime, but they could not have really ele- 
vated her character. Girls sometimes forget to feed 
their pets ; they often forget little commissions given 
them by their mothers ; they forget to take the right 
books to school; they forget where their lessons are, 
and a hundred things which inconvenience other per- 
sons as well as themselves. It is certainly a school- 
girl's duty to know her lessons, even when she sees no 
particular advantage in them, and although it is true that 
teachers sometimes give absurd lessons. I suppose we 
all know, in a general way, what our special duties are, 
and can apply the formula for ourselves. 

Sometimes we say we cannot remember the things 
we ought. I have been told that Dr. James Freeman 



40 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

Clarke once preached a sermon on this subject. He 
said we could remember whatever we felt a deep interest 
in remembering. During the following week he discov- 
ered one day that he had entirely forgotten something 
which caused him great personal loss and annoyance, — 
something which he had a deep interest in remember- 
ing. The next Sunday when he entered the pulpit, he 
took occasion, with his usual candour, to mention the 
circumstance, and to retract all he had said the Sun- 
day before. Nevertheless it is true that the things we 
most want to remember are those which it is our duty 
to remember. 

Second, we want to remember whatever will add to 
the happiness of others. This is perhaps a branch of 
our first proposition; yet I emphasize it, because there 
are so many small acts not strictly our duty which we 
could do every day, and which we should be glad to do 
if we could only think of them. These are the 

"Little nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love," 

— '^unremembered," that is, after they are done. The 
quality we call " thoughtfulness for others," which lends 
a special charm to the character of some young girls, is 
greatly due to this fine use of memory. 

In these two directions we want to remember certain 
definite things, and we are justified in resorting to the 
most artificial means for the purpose. If I have prom- 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO REMEMBER? 4 1 

ised to lend you a book, it is quite right for me to 
remind myself of it by changing a ring to another finger. 
Much more would this be right if I had reason to sup- 
pose I should forget to return a book I had borrowed. 

We might perhaps use artificial means to remember 
anything which would add to our own happiness, though 
here we are less likely to forget. Still, I once knew a 
young man who was so busy getting his affairs in order 
for his wedding journey that he forgot to look at the 
clock, and missed the train that was to take him to 
the ceremony. 

But for any intellectual purpose, artificial stimulants 
to the memory are often worse than useless. 

Now, third, we want to remember as many facts as we 
can make use of in any way, either to aid our judgment 
or to enlarge our minds. I hope that few of us — few 
even of girls fourteen or fifteen years old — fancy that 
isolated facts have much value. Once during my child- 
hood a lecturer came into our village with the announce- 
ment that he had invented a system for remembering 
everything. He selected one of the brightest little girls 
in school, and after training her one afternoon, he ex- 
hibited her to his audience in the evening. He asked 
for dates of the most disconnected facts one after an- 
other, and she gave every one triumphantly. I am not 
quite sure that she could not have learned them as 
quickly without any system, though in that case she 



42 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

would have probably forgotten them sooner. Then the 
lecturer explained his method of teaching her. I re- 
member but one example, — she had said that Judge 
Story died in 1845. Each figure corresponded to some 
letter in the professor's scheme. The " i " being disre- 
garded, "845" represented f r 1. This was to remind 
the learner of the word " farewell " from which it was an 
easy step to say that Judge Story bade farewell to the 
world at that date ! She then retranslated the word 
" farewell " into figures, and had won her fact. I am 
positive that she had no idea who Judge Story was or 
why it was essential to know the date of his death. In- 
deed if any one tells me that I am wrong in that partic- 
ular I shall not insist that I am not ; or rather, I know I 
am not mistaken in the date, but it may be that it was 
some other judge who died then ! So it does not seem 
to me that this was a very fructifying fact for either of us 
to know. Moreover I have often wondered what could 
have been done with any other events which had hap- 
pened to occur in 1845, for instance those connected 
with the Mexican War, since *^ farewell " would have 
stood uncompromisingly for every one of them. 

There are many memory-systems extant, — some 
no doubt much better than others, — but it is a 
great question whether arbitrary facts, however firmly 
fixed in the mind, do not on the whole cumber the 
ground instead of enriching it. Of course any fact may 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO REMEMBER? 43 

sometime be of use. Thrifty housekeepers often save 
odds and ends with the plea that " sometime the want of 
it will be more than the worth of it." Even in the case 
of housekeepers it may be questioned whether it is wise 
to fill small rooms with debris which has only a prospec- 
tive usefulness ; and what shall we say of a Toodles who 
actually goes out and buys a coffin because " sometime 
it will be handy to have it in the house "? The brains 
of most of us are too limited in capacity to be crowded 
with a great deal of unassorted material. We cannot 
afford to know everything. We cannot therefore afford to 
use a system which insists on teaching us everything. 

In one of Miss Edgeworth's stories, — " The Good 
French Governess," I think, — she describes a young 
girl who had been taught entirely by memorizing facts. 
Isabella expected to astonish her new governess by the 
glibness with which she reciled a list of the dates of in- 
ventions, beginning, I dare say, with Greek fire and com- 
ing down to the steam-engine. The governess, however, 
refused to be overwhelmed, but asked the young lady 
what was the use of all these dates. The pupil coloured, 
stammered, and finally said it was certainly a good thing 
to know when paper was first used. The governess was 
not easily persuaded even of this ; but at last glancing 
over the list again, she noticed that many years had 
elapsed between the invention of paper and that of 
printing — far be it from me to know how many ! 



44 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

"That is worth knowing," she said. "It shows how 
very slowly invention progressed in those days." You 
see, with her, facts to be worth anything must lead to 
an end. 

However, it is no doubt an innocent ambition to wish 
to be well-informed, so I will add to the list of things we 
want to remember — 

Fourth, the things that others about us know and 
expect us to know. 

This kind of memory has a practical value. It helps 
us to appear well ; sometimes it helps us to earn money ; 
but so far as the culture either of our mind or character 
is concerned, it is not worth much. 

When I was a girl I heard a cousin of mine, then in 
college, tell the story of a fellow-student who was dis- 
covered reading one of Scott's novels in a corner of the 
library, and who inquired very earnestly, " Who was this 
^Waverley,' anyhow?" That struck the group of cousins 
as a great joke. None of us could understand how any- 
body who could read could be so ignorant. Since then, 
however, I have no doubt that all of. us have made 
blunders which stamped us as equally ignorant in the 
estimation of those who detected them. I should be 
able to forgive the young reader in the library now, 
especially if I found that he was capable of enjoying 
Scott, which some of those who have "Waverley's" 
biography at their tongue's end seem to be incapable of 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO REMEMBER? 45 

doing. We are always ready to laugh at anybody who 
does not know what we know, and that is one reason we 
have such agonies of fear lest somebody should discover 
the weak spots in our own armour. But why should 
we be ashamed not to know a thing? No one can know 
everything. The greatest men, if they would take you 
into their confidence, would probably tell you that they 
had sometimes made mistakes at which a schoolboy 
would blush ; yet the most philosophical among us do 
suffer more from involuntary sHps of memory than from 
the infraction of some weightier matters of the law. 
And not altogether without reason ; for all of us who 
have had refined and educated parents, and who have 
had the ordinary school advantages, do know certain cur- 
rent facts, unless we are extraordinarily stupid, or have 
been culpably careless. We condemn ourselves when 
we admit our ignorance. Yet not one of us is infallible ; 
so when we laugh at other people's blunders, let us be 
good-natured, and when we give other people occasion 
to laugh at us, let us still be good-natured ; and more- 
over let us not be too downcast because of our short- 
comings, but try to improve. 

And now, at last, how shall we make our own all the 
manifold facts we want to remember? 

We can fix the host of little items belonging to our 
duties by making memoranda in a pocket note-book and 
consulting these every day. A lady connected with a 



46 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

great Boston daily paper relates that the number of de- 
tails she feels obliged not to forget is so great that she 
keeps a diary laid out for months in advance, and that in 
May of one year she entered the memorandum, " Nov. 

12. To be married to ." Perhaps we should 

not all need such scrupulous notes as that, but I think 
any of us may use those we do need without compunc- 
tion. I know a young lady who is confidential clerk in 
a large business house. She said a few days ago that she 
was almost beside herself with the number of things she 
must remember, but that she supposed it would be 
ruinous to her memory if she kept lists of them. I 
believe she was quite wrong. Her object is to do cer- 
tain things at certain times, not to be able to repeat the 
list in alphabetical order. If she could only relieve her 
mind of all this unnecessary strain, she could exercise it 
sufficiently for sound health upon those things which she 
really wants to be laid up in its store-house forevermore. 
Of course she must remember enough of the business to 
guide her intelligently in carrying it on. 

For learning those things which are to be a perma- 
nent addition to our stock of knowledge, a few simple 
principles must be observed. 

I. We must get an accurate impression of what we 
want to remember. 

This is closely connected with our powers of observa- 
tion. Those who observe well do not forget what they 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO REMEMBER? 47 

see. But we want to remember a great many things 
besides those we see. In studying history, for instance, 
suppose we think that it would be a disgrace to any 
American woman not to know the principles laid down 
in the Declaration of Independence ; we must study 
that document, not only as a whole, but sentence by 
sentence, and make sure that we see exactly what it 
means. More than that, we must read its history, and 
find out what we can of the motives which influenced 
the various signers ; and by that time, I think, we might 
have our " accurate impression." If we consider study 
of this kind beyond us, we may be right ; but in that 
case we shall have to give up learning the Declaration 
of Independence. 

I once knew a young woman whose early education 
had been neglected. At last the opportunity to go to 
school came to her. She was full of ambition, and ready 
to study night and day ; but she could never learn a 
lesson. She failed so utterly one day on some rules for 
parsing that the teacher spoke to her privately of the 
matter. The poor girl grew red in the face, and then 
burst into tears. " I studied. Miss Smith, till I fainted 
away," she said. And yet she did not know the very 
first rule : " Adjectives and participles belong to nouns 
and pronouns." The teacher wondered how such hard 
study could produce such a small result, and on inquiry 
learned that the poor student, in her desire to be thor- 



48 CHATS WITH GH^LS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

ough, had studied each word twenty times before going 
on to the next, — '' Adjectives, adjectives, adjectives, 
etc. j and, and, and, etc. ; participles, participles, parti- 
ciples, etc." She had a perception of the separate 
words, but naturally saw no connection between them. 
We need a whole impression of whatever we are trying 
to learn. 

2. We must think about what we are learning. 

As long as we are looking at an object, or reading 
about an event, our minds may wander without our 
knowing it. But when we shut our eyes and try to re- 
call the object or the event, we find out our deficiencies 
at once, and can go back to the study with an intelligent 
idea of the way to supply them. We must continue to 
do this till we have thoroughly learned what we are trying 
to learn. We shall succeed in the end, unless we have 
undertaken some subject really beyond our powers ; and 
in that case, the sooner we find it out the better. 

3. Frequent repetition is necessary to keep anything 
in our minds. 

Even when we have mastered some subject com- 
pletely for the time being, yet if we put it aside and go 
on to another subject, we shall find on coming back to it 
a few months later that some of the outlines are begin- 
ning to fade. We must see that they are traced firmly 
once more, or we shall soon lose the whole picture. If, 
however, we learned the subject thoroughly at first, it is 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO REMEMBER? 49 

easy to review it. " My sister has to spend more time 
than I do over advance lessons," said a school-girl, 
with a roguish smile ; " but I notice that it saves her 
time when we come to reviews." And I have heard a 
music-teacher say that a pupil who had once learned to 
play a piece of music without stumbling could take it up 
again years after with the certainty of being able to play 
it correctly with half an hour's practice. 

There are various kinds of repetition suited to the 
different things we try to learn. For instance, let us 
consider a moment the different ways of studying his- 
tory and poetry, for these two studies are particularly 
adapted to the exercise of the memory, though that is 
by no means the highest use of either of them. 

In a poem every word has a value ; it cannot be 
changed or misplaced without destroying the beauty of 
the passage. We must learn poetry verbatim; indeed, 
unless we do so we never quite take in the full meaning 
of even our favourite poems. This is one reason why 
learning poetry has such an elevating influence. Once 
learned, it must be repeated over and over again, every 
day at first, then every week perhaps, and then at longer 
intervals ; and we must not be contented with making a 
slip here and there. But all this repetition takes time, 
and has neither the mental nor the moral value of the 
first learning of a poem. Besides, we may wish to learn 
something new. I am sure none of us can afford to let 

4 



50 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

the habit of studying the best poetry ever be lost out of 
our daily Uves. We need its high companionship con- 
stantly. Fortunately, though it is often thought that 
young people learn more readily than older ones, it is 
not altogether true. A middle-aged friend of mine tells 
me that she has made it a point to learn a few lines of 
poetry every day for many years, and that she does so 
more and more easily ; but she says she often forgets 
what she learns, simply because it is impossible to re- 
peat the great numbers of poems she knows as often as 
she could repeat the comparatively small number she 
knew when a girl. Some of us think it would be hard 
to find time every day to learn even a few lines ; but 
surely we must give a part of every Sunday to such ele- 
vating study, and if we learn half a dozen lines on Sun- 
day, and take pains to repeat them every day through 
the week, we shall soon have much good treasure laid 
up where moth and rust will not corrupt. 

It would be mere folly to learn history verbatim. 
Here we want facts first as a foundation, but far more, 
relations between facts. It may be a good exercise for 
us when an examiner asks us all sorts of questions in a 
breath: "Who won the battle of Waterloo ? " "When 
was Charles the First beheaded?" "What is the Ro- 
setta Stone?" Indeed, I once knew a very entertain- 
ing teacher of history who contended that the true way 
to equip her pupils to meet sudden demands upon them 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO REMEMBER? 5 1 

was to ask them such a jumble of questions every day. 
" Nobody in society," she would say, " will ever inquire 
whether you can give a clear account of the English 
Revolution or not, but anybody may turn to you and 
ask when Charles the First was beheaded." She was 
right ; but after all culture does not consist in being 
able to answer other people's questions, — though, in- 
deed, as that is very convenient, I think a Httle sharp 
practice of this kind would occasionally be good for most 
of us. We like to have our facts well in hand, ready for 
instant use ; but if we hope to remember much of his- 
tory, or to make it in any way vital to us, we must study 
very differently. We must take an epoch as a whole ; 
we must learn about all the great men of the time, and 
understand their acts ; we must learn the geography of 
the country, the condition of its arts and sciences and 
literature, until all our study blends and forms a living 
whole. When we have once studied an epoch in this 
way, we shall always remember the main features of it ; 
but we shall forget details, and it would of course be 
impossible to go over all the same ground again and 
again. It is not even desirable, for many of the details 
we have forgotten were only of use as they served to 
make the whole picture more vivid, and other details 
would answer the purpose as well. So I should say, that 
if you find yourself forgetting the particulars of the life 
of Washington, which you perhaps read in Mr. Scudder's 



52 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

little book in the "Riverside Library for Young People," 
it would be best not to re-read that book, but to take 
up the larger " Life " by Mr. Lodge, where you will have 
the important facts differently presented with some ad- 
ditional ones ; the next time you find yourself doubt- 
ful on these points, read Irving's "Washington," and 
so on. 

Suppose you have read a general history of England. 
It would be a good plan to take next a general history 
of France, — for there has been a constant interaction 
between the two countries for hundreds of years, — and 
in the story of France you will review the main events 
of the English story from a new standpoint. 

And now a word as to dates. There are not more 
than twenty or thirty dates that it is absolutely necessary 
for us to know ; but it is often disgraceful not to know 
the epoch in which any event occurred. For instance, 
we need not feel ourselves ruined for life if we should 
happen to think Columbus discovered America in 
i4P3^ — though I admit that is one of the mistakes an 
American girl ought not to make ; but to fancy that he 
discovered it in 1392 or 1592 would be fatally wrong, — 
though the figures themselves would be no more askew, 
— because such an error would affect our whole con- 
ception of the last part of the fifteenth century. If we 
know the story of the discovery well, the one date, 1492, 
will tell us a great many things, — that Ferdinand and 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO REMEMBER? 53 

Isabella ruled Spain at that time, that Henry VII. was 
then on the throne of England, etc. If we know how to 
group our facts, eighteen dates will give us approxi- 
mately the time of every great event of the Christian 
era. 

I should be willing to learn a few dates artificially; 
and I am not one of those who despise the lists of 
Roman emperors and English kings. These lists are 
good pegs to hang miscellaneous knowledge upon until 
we have collected enough of it to arrange in some or- 
ganic form. Nevertheless I think we should all beware 
of often applying artificial stimulants to our memory. 



V. 

HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO THINK? 

IF we have learned how to observe in any broad 
sense, and if we have then learned how to fix 
essential facts in our memory, we shall be already far on 
the way toward learning to think, for in intelligent 
observation or memory we must use judgment. 

For example, we look at a wild rose till we know 
every part in detail, and then we examine a strawberry- 
blossom. If we have made the observation faithfully, it 
will not take a teacher to tell us that the two plants 
belong to one family, A spark of understanding will 
flash across from one set of observations to the other; 
we shall then be ready to test the whole floral kingdom 
by comparing every member of it with a rose. Is this 
flower like a rose, or is it not? If not, how does it 
difler? One might study botany on an uninhabited 
island in this way, and group plants naturally, making 
a close approximation to the well-known written sys- 
tems. A lily is far removed from a rose, and both are 
very different from a dandelion. Which of the three 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO THINK? 55 

does a buttercup most resemble ? The first steps in the 
study of any science are steps of observation, but they 
lead directly up to comparison and inference, and in 
other words, to judgment. 

Or suppose we are trying to learn something of an 
epoch in history, — for instance, the French Revolution. 
We cannot even remember the leading facts unless we 
understand them. We must think of the causes which 
brought on the Revolution before we can remember the 
difference between the Jacobins and the Girondists. 
We must consider the character and circumstances of 
individual actors in the drama before we can remember 
unerringly the part they took. Was Madame Roland 
a Jacobin or a Girondist? The girls who can answer 
that question six months after they have read her life 
will be able to do so because they have thought about 
her character and have understood something of her 
relation to the times. To remember essential things, 
we must first use our judgment in deciding what 
are essential. 

I have already spoken of Science and History as 
studies which cultivate respectively observation and 
memory ; but it will be clear that they both have a far 
higher use in teaching us to think. The sciences which 
are learned principally by trying experiments — like 
chemistry and physics — are especially of use here, for 
we always have to ask ourselves what the experiment 



56 CHATS WITH GH^LS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

proves? History develops the power to form a dif- 
ferent class of judgments ; and a broad study of history 
is indispensable to all who wish to be able to think 
wisely on current affairs. 

For precision of thought there is no instructor like 
mathematics, and geometry beyond all other branches 
of them. Such an overwhelming majority of girls hate 
mathematics that it is hard to know just how to persuade 
them of its importance. I knew one indefatigable 
teacher, who used to labour with each pupil in private 
till she had absolutely convinced her that she (the 
pupil) wanted to master her mathematics in the most 
complete and thorough way. This teacher not only had 
a beautiful and noble character, but possessed such sym- 
pathy and power of attraction that the girls' love for her 
probably formed a preponderating factor in their en- 
thusiasm for the study. At all events, they yielded, to 
the very last girl ; the most stupid one found that she 
could understand what she had thought she could not ; 
and that wonderful teacher set her impress upon the 
school, so that the high standard in mathematics was 
maintained there long after she was in her grave. More 
than that, all her scholars carried out into life the habit 
of asking, " Why? " when any new course of thought or 
action opened before them; and "Why?" is one of 
those little words which have a far-reaching effect in 
teaching us how to think on all subjects. 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO THINK? 57 

Most people — boys as well as girls — are naturally 
rather dull at mathematics ; but boys like them better 
than girls do, and they are always taught that practical 
success in life depends on knowing at least arithmetic 
well. Girls have practical need of arithmetic, too, 
though they do not often require quite as many of its 
technicalities. But they are tacitly encouraged to in- 
dulge their dislike, which is usually extreme, on the 
ground that they will not need to earn their living by 
figures, though, as a matter of fact, a great many of 
them are obliged to do this. 

My present plea for mathematics, however, is based 
entirely on their importance in teaching precise thinking. 
I know girls' schools in which they hold an honoured 
place, and others in which they are virtually ignored. 
In the latter the girls sometimes have a broader culture 
when they leave school, but their tone of mind is less 
vigorous, and ten years later, the mathematicians have 
often distanced them in general culture. Of course, 
exclusive devotion to mathematics would be narrowing ; 
though when they are carried into the domains of 
Chemistry and Crystallography, etc., they do open a 
vast and splendid territory to the thinker. As I have 
yet to hear of the girls' school which lays undue stress 
on such study, I think it safe to advise every girl who 
reads these pages to make the most of her opportunities 
in this direction. No doubt too much precision is fatal 



58 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

to large judgments, but I do not happen to know any 
girl who is in danger of being too precise. 

An accomplished lady, who during several years had 
taught the same set of girls a variety of subjects, ranging 
from mathematics and physics to botany and rhetoric, 
said : ''It was more delightful at the time to take them 
botanizing in the woods, or to discuss the figures of 
speech, than to drill them in mathematics ; but in look- 
ing back on the work, the mathematics give me most 
satisfaction, for I could see how the minds of the girls 
gained in power from year to year." 

But as I write my thoughts are often with those girls 
who have no teachers and must learn their mathematics 
alone. This is not always a misfortune. I am sorry to say 
that a great deal of the confusion girls find in mathema- 
tics is due to incompetent primary teaching. Advanced 
teachers are usually capable, but the mischief is done 
before the pupil comes into their hands. Now, a girl 
who finds mathematics a puzzle, and who has no teacher 
to help her, may be excused for not trying to do great 
things in this department ; but there are two subjects 
perhaps within her reach. One is mental arithmetic, — 
altogether the most important part of arithmetic. I do 
not believe there are many young women twenty years 
old who are sufficiently in earnest to study Warren Col- 
burn's ancient "Mental Arithmetic" fifteen minutes a 
day, following his processes exactly, who could not con- 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO THINK? 59 

quer the book in six months, and be the better for it 
ever afterwards. 

The other subject I would recommend is geometry, 
for here the reasoning is not so based on arithmetic and 
algebra that ignorance of these will be an insuperable 
obstacle in the path. Take any text-book, learn the 
axioms at the beginning, set down the first proposition 
with its figure on paper, and then shut your book and 
see if you do not already know enough to prove the 
proposition ; if not, you will have to read the proof, but 
that is no reason why you should not try to prove the 
next proposition for yourself. It will be as interesting 
as an enigma and more productive of results. Of 
course, if you have no gift whatever for geometry, you 
can easily stop at any time ; but if you have any natural 
capacity for it, you will succeed with some propositions, 
and you will understand the proofs you are obliged to 
read. When you finish the book you will know a great 
deal more of geometry than most school-graduates do. 
And after such a course you will never be as contented 
with loose and vague arguments on any topic as you 
were before. 

I have heard of a man who reads a new book in the 
following manner. He first thinks over its subject, and 
perhaps puts down on paper the headings of the differ- 
ent subdivisions which he believes ought to be treated. 



60 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

Then he refers to the table of contents, where of course 
he finds some points which he has omitted, though 
sometimes perhaps he has taken a more comprehensive 
view than the author. Then he considers the question 
to be treated in each chapter, and settles in his mind his 
own opinions upon it. Now, when he reads the chapter, 
he is prepared to judge whether his first ideas were 
correct or not. If the author has anything to teach him, 
he is pretty sure to learn it. Such a plan of reading 
would not do for all kinds of books, but is of great use 
in cases where an appeal is made to our judgment. I 
should be very glad if some young girl would try the 
experiment with the little volume I am now writing. 
Let her take the subject of any chapter in the book, and 
think about it before she reads it. Perhaps her ideas 
would be clearer if she would write them down. When 
she reads the chapter, she may find that she has antici- 
pated all the good advice I mean to give her, and that 
she positively disagrees with some of my opinions : she 
will then be all ready to consider the opinions which 
those wiser than I have expressed on the same subject in 
better books. Whether what I have to say is useful in 
itself or not, the exercise will have been useful to her 
in teaching her how to think. 

It will be still more to the purpose if she will try the 
same experiment with some masterpiece of literature. 
I remember an earnest young girl who was interested in 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO THINK? 6 1 

Plato's " Dialogues," and coming to the question, " Can 
virtue be taught? " she set herself the task of writing a 
composition on the subject. Of course she was all the 
more able to appreciate the words of Socrates when she 
came to read them. 

To learn to think, we must think. If we do not know 
how to think, we must try to think. Every day brings 
experiences which ought to make us ask ourselves the 
pregnant little questions, ''How?'* and ''Why?" We 
must not grudge the strength and time necessary to 
answer them for ourselves ; but we must answer them 
humbly. We must hold ourselves ready for new light, 
and be willing to correct our judgments by comparing 
them with those of wiser thinkers. We know books and 
people to be trusted. Let us go to them for help, while 
we hold ourselves free to weigh their views in the bal- 
ances with our own. This attitude of mind will, I feel, 
do more in teaching us to judge justly than any special 
study ; logic itself could hardly help us so much ; and 
a serious study of logic is rather too difficult for most 
young girls who have to work alone, though it seems 
to me that even the alphabet of the science is worth 
something. 

Still, there are certain studies which are particularly 
beneficial to those who are trying to form the judgment. 
The science of criticism is of the greatest value. Read 
your Shakspeare, for instance, not so that you may be 



62 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

ready with quotations, but in such a way that you may 
understand life and character. Think of the heroes and 
heroines, and try to grasp their motives of action. Try 
their deeds by the highest standards, and see whether 
they will meet the test. You need not read a single vol- 
ume of criticism to do this, you must simply live with 
these great men and women. Afterwards you may com- 
pare your thoughts with those of the critics, and you will 
find that others have a wider horizon than yours, and that 
with them you can climb to higher mountain-tops. 

And then, for the best thought one must study 
poetry. Matthew Arnold says that " the essential part 
of poetic greatness is the noble and profound applica- 
tion of ideas to life." This is the spirit for the study 
of poetry. We must look for the noble and profound 
ideas, and endeavour to apply them to life. Perhaps 
most young girls will find it hard to do this at first with- 
out help. But does not the most obscure among you 
know some one who can help you a little, if in no other 
way, at least by suggesting books to read ? At any rate, 
you can begin with Shakspeare, and you cannot help 
being elevated by constant contact with so grand a 
mind. I heard a lady say once, in speaking of an ac- 
quaintance, " She would be more likely to know that a 
poem was a good one, if she saw it in a book than if 
she saw it in a newspaper ! " Now, you ought to know 
whether a poem gives you high thoughts, whether you 



HOW SHALL WE LEARN TO THINK? 63 

see it in a book or in a newspaper. But inasmuch as 
there is more good poetry in books than in periodicals, 
you will learn discrimination more quickly if you spend 
your time over the great poets than if you waste it in 
trying to sift the wheat from the chaff in the daily news- 
papers, — at least at first. By-and-by the time will come 
when you will know a fine thing in a moment wherever 
you see it by this infallible test, — it will uplift and 
comfort you. 



VI. 

THE STUDY OF LANGUAGES. 

I HOPE I have already made it clear that all study 
should have for its object the enlargement of the 
mind and the development of the character. When we 
begin to consider the claims of special studies our path is 
not always quite plain. I am one of those who believe in 
the fullest possible education for everybody. To history, 
literature, the sciences, mathematics, music, and art, I 
would gladly add as many languages as the student can 
really master, provided — and this is a very important 
stipulation — that nothing more important is sacrificed, 
— health, for instance, or happiness, or 

" A heart at leisure from itself 
To soothe and sympathize." 

As a matter of fact, however, so complete a curriculum 
is not possible for most of us. Capacity and circum- 
stances decide what each can do. Now, while I by no 
means despise the man who " can ask for gingerbread 
in twenty languages," I think most of us will not use our 
lives to the best advantage in studying so many different 



THE STUDY OF LANGUAGES. 65 

tongues ; and I think it would be a real misfortune for 
those young girls who are trying to learn something 
without the aid of a teacher to spend most of their time 
over languages, as I know they are often tempted 
to do. 

There is a story to the point told in the recent memo- 
rial, "William Ellis and his Conduct-Teaching." As 
Mr. Ellis's name will not be familiar to most girls, I 
will say that he was a rich business man who devoted all 
his spare time and money to the founding of schools 
which should make conduct the most important branch 
of study. He was at one time employed to teach the 
royal children of England, and one of them, at least, — 
the present ex-Empress of Germany, — always held her 
teacher in reverent remembrance. He was once con- 
sulted by a lady who was looking for an instructor in 
Spanish, I think, for her daughter, who had already 
been taught three or four other languages. " I sup- 
pose your daughter understands astronomy?" he asked. 
"Oh, no." " Botany, perhaps ? " "No." And so he 
continued his questions, always receiving a negative 
answer. At last he said, smiling, " Is n't it almost a 
pity to give her another opportunity of advertising her 
ignorance ? " 

The truth is, language rightly studied is of the highest 
value ; but as a mere accomplishment, it is one of the 
most barren of pursuits. I am very sorry to say that 

5 



66 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

most girls study the languages — especially the modern 
languages — to which they are most attracted, chiefly as 
accomplishments. Now we will not be unfair even to 
accomplishments ; so let us admit at once that it is a 
fine thing for a girl to know French, or German, or 
Italian well, to speak it with a perfect accent, to write 
it fluently and correctly, and to read it at sight. And 
then let us immediately add that such a genuine accom- 
plishment as that is not only very rare, but entirely 
impossible, unless the pupil is both rich and gifted, and 
we all know such a combination is unusual. 

Mr. Hamerton says, in his " Intellectual Life," that no 
one can possibly learn more than three languages per- 
fectly ; and that the conditions necessary for even so 
many are, that one parent should be a native of one 
country, the other of another, and that the family should 
live in the third. As a general thing, even those who 
live in foreign countries do not speak two languages per- 
fectly. If they master the new language entirely, they 
find themselves forgetting certain idioms of their mother- 
tongue. 

So, to be really accomplished in any language, we 
must have opportunities which involve money. And any 
one who has witnessed the painful spectacle of the vast 
numbers of girls' schools in which all other education is 
made secondary to the study of French, and who knows 
how far the pupils are in the end from reading, writing, 



THE STUDY OF LANGUAGES. 6/ 

and speaking the French language correctly, will not 
need to be told that more than average powers must 
supplement riches in order that French may be an ac- 
complishment. I dwell a little on this point, because a 
knowledge of French is looked upon as one of the hall- 
marks which distinguish a lady ; and this is the ignis 
fa tuns which allures many a poor girl to spend her time 
in trying to acquire it. I do not wish to discourage the 
study, but merely to show just what measure of success 
is possible. A French accent, for instance, is almost a 
monopoly of the rich ; though very few of them ever gain 
it, for it can only be caught by constantly hearing the 
language spoken by cultivated teachers. I sometimes 
think that one reason the rich prize the accent so much 
is because they have such an advantage over the poor in 
that respect, while a clever student may easily win the 
honours for thoroughness in the grammar or literature. 
At all events, they do prize it ; and few teachers are so 
unmercifully criticised as those unlucky Frenchmen and 
Frenchwomen who are suspected of having been brought 
up anywhere except in the very centre of the city of 
Paris. 

It will be seen that I think that any girl, and especially 
any poor girl, should have some better object than to 
become accomplished, if she undertakes the study of 
French. The same may be said of other languages, 
only most others are pursued more earnestly. Perhaps 



68 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

the fact that French is the court language of Europe has 
attracted to it just those people to whom the surfoce is 
everything. 

There are those who recommend the study of the 
modern languages for their practical use. Circum- 
stances decide this matter. A girl w^ho is employed by 
a large merchant or manufacturer having dealings in 
South America, may find it greatly to the purpose to 
learn Spanish. Having learned it for its bread- winning 
value, she may be able to use it to still better ends, — 
for a knowledge of its literature, perhaps, or to help her 
to comprehend the life of nations so different from her 
own. 

I know a young lady who came to the city to study 
something, — she had not a very distinct idea what. 
She did not expect to earn her living, but she thought 
it would be well to study something which might be a 
prop in time of need. She began with shorthand ; but 
finding it extremely irksome, she reflected on the re- 
moteness of the contingency which would lead her to 
use it, and determined to try some language. She 
found herself inclined toward Volaplik. It seemed to 
her that it would be a great thing to understand a uni- 
versal language. She did not realize that Volapiik was 
an artificial language, that could teach her no more of 
the structure of language in general than . shorthand 
could, that it had absolutely no literature, and that it 



THE STUDY OF LANGUAGES. 69 

could do nothing to help her understand other modes 
of life. The time may come when Volapiik will be a 
convenient " acquisition for a business woman, but it 
can never be a means of culture to anybody ; while the 
study of any natural language must expand the mind, 
even if pursued for the money it will bring. 

In these days we all go abroad, or expect to go. Of 
course it is a convenience to ' understand the language 
of the countries we visit ; but this is by no means 
essential. One of the most highly cultivated ladies I 
ever knew, having been obliged by weakness of the eyes 
to omit some branches from a life-long course of study, 
had decided she could best spare the languages, and 
beyond the rudiments of Latin, learned when a child, 
she had only English at her command. When the time 
came for her to go abroad, she had some misgivings ; but 
a year or two later she could exult in having been all 
over Europe and having found English sufficient for her 
needs, while she had often succeeded in extricating her 
party from difficulties which had baffled the linguists in 
it. There are English-speaking railway-officials, and 
clerks, and servants everywhere. So it seems that" it 
is hardly best to learn a language simply for its prac- 
tical benefit unless we have some definite plan for its 
immediate use. 

There are, however, other reasons for studying lan- 
guages which are weighty. It is worth much to have the 



70 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

key to any great literature. It is true we shall never 
exhaust English literature, and it may appear superfluous 
to study that of another country. But if we could 
choose the masterpieces of all nations, it would be better 
than to spend our time exclusively upon the works of one 
nation. Translations will help us, but a translation can- 
not completely take the place of the original. Now most 
of us have the capacity and the opportunity to study at 
least one language besides our own thoroughly enough to 
be at home in its literature, though we must not expect 
to reach that degree of excellence without hard work. 
If literature is our aim, Greek will repay our labour better 
than Latin, and German better than any other modern 
language. But any of the languages usually pursued in 
schools have a noble literature to offer if we are ready 
to take it. I have great sympathy with those scholars 
who learn Italian simply for the sake of entering more 
fully into the spirit of Dante. 

There is another point of view from which the study 
of languages, and particularly of the classics, is still more 
important. True culture ought to raise us above the 
circumstances of our own narrow lives. If we always 
look at things from our own standpoint, we are sure to 
confuse the essential and the accidental ; consequently it 
is of the greatest value to us to bring ourselves into a 
position far removed from our own, to see the world if 
we can with the eyes of one of a different race and 



THE STUDY OF LANGUAGES. 71 

time ; and while all history and literature will help us to 
do this, a foreign language, and especially a dead lan- 
guage, helps us more than anything else, — for the very 
words (the names of utensils or of the parts of the 
dress) stand for something unfamiliar in our daily lives, 
and a translation, however useful, lessens the effect by 
bringing everything, a little nearer our own standards. 
Dr. W. T. Harris, our U. S. Commissioner of Education, 
in a powerful paper on the " Function of the study of 
Latin and Greek in Education " says, - It will be acknowl- 
edged without dispute that modern civiUzation is deriva- 
tive, resting upon the ancient Roman civilization on the 
one' hand, and on Greek civiUzation on the other." And 
he argues that the education of a child should lead him 
to understand the elements of his own complex being. 
So he must find '^ one after the other the threads that 
compose his civilization, — threads that weave the tissue 
of his own nature as a product of civilization." 

This paper has been given to the Bureau of Educa- 
tion for distribution, and deserves to be read by every 

student. 

I do not suppose young girls who are just beginning to 
study any language can appreciate just how it is going to 
influence them ; but I should be glad if what I have said 
might lead some of them to work with a more serious 
aim than to chatter about the weather in some foreign 
city. For I believe that every girl should learn some 



72 CHATS WITH GHILS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

language besides her own for the sake of the right men- 
tal balance. No one has a very clear idea of the struc- 
ture of English who has not made some attemjDt to 
understand another language. 

Pronunciation and conversation cannot be learned 
without a teacher ; but something can be done in 
grammar and translation by persistent work alone. And 
at some time or other, the poorest of us is sure to find 
some one who is glad to teach us something. I have 
heard of a young girl who spends ten or twelve hours a 
day in the ill-lighted package-room of a railroad station 
and who yet had the energy to begin the study of French 
by herself. The pronunciation puzzled her, and at last 
she took courage to ask some questions about it of 
another young girl — a pupil in a fashionable school — 
who was in the habit of leaving her books, among which 
the French books were conspicuous, in the package- 
room. The latter was delighted. "Oh, Mamma/' 
she exclaimed, the moment she reached home, " I have 
found somebody I can help ! Even my French is actually 
going to do me some good." And so she went on help- 
ing the solitary student a little every day. 

I should do my duty very ill in this chapter if I did 
not say that our own language deserves our study above 
all others. When I hear that a young lady speaks French 
or German as well as she does English, I always find 
m.yself wondering how well she speaks English. English 



THE STUDY OF LANGUAGES. 73 

seems to be within reach of us all, and yet most of us 
must blush to acknowledge how imperfectly we have 
mastered it. How can we do better? 

We are taught the rudiments of the language in school, 
and there are many admirable little books on words and 
their uses which may be of service ; but we are often 
contented to pick up our English from the people about 
us, and we copy their faults as well as their virtues. Here 
are a few suggestions for those who have already mas- 
tered the familiar text-books on grammar and rhetoric : 

1. Read the best writers. 

Those who have the best things to say do not always 
say them in the most polished English ; but a book does 
not become a classic unless its ideas are clearly and 
forcibly expressed. You may not consciously pay any 
attention to the language of the book you are reading, 
but you catch its tone, just as you do that of a living 
companion. 

2. In speaking or writing, try to make your meaning 
clear, and take pains to choose the best word to express 
an idea. 

These two suggestions seem to me most important ; 
but for those who have time and inclination, I think 
a daily exercise in writing English simply for practice 
is valuable. It may take the form of a diary, — not 
a sentimental one, I hope, but one recording the most 
interesting events of every day. We may write a report 



74 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

of lectures, or an abstract of the books we are reading. 
Another useful exercise is to translate a few paragraphs 
of some other language into idiomatic English, working 
over every sentence till we are sure we have rendered 
the exact idea in the very best way. 

I once knew a young girl whose father, a clergyman 
with a large correspondence, employed her as an aman- 
uensis. He gave her the substance of the letters she 
was to write, but she was obliged to use her own words. 
"When I used to read the letters to him," she said, "he 
always asked me if I could not express the same thing 
more briefly. So I have learned to write concisely, but I 
have no grace." 

I doubt whether grace can be directly cultivated. Still, 
if we should try to say everything pleasantly as well as 
forcibly, I fancy that however concise we might be we 
should never be abrupt; moreover, there is a certain 
grace in simplicity. 



VII. 

THE CULTIVATION OF THE LOVE OF BEAUTY. 

WHY is it that girls care so much for accompHsh- 
ments? Partly, I fear, for the sake of making 
something of a figure in the world ; but partly also, I am 
sure, because any true accomplishment, like music or art 
or dancing or horticulture, or even embroidery, adds so 
much to the beauty of life, and may give so much enjoy- 
ment not only to ourselves but to our friends, — though 
unfortunately most accompHshments are not used as un- 
selfishly as we might wish them to be, which perhaps 
only means that very few of us really are accomplished ; 
that is, we are always working up to the point where we 
can begin to use our acquisitions for the delight of 
others, who would not be at all delighted if called upon 
to share our gifts in their present imperfect state. 

Uneducated girls are apt to overrate the effect of 
accomplishments, not understanding how few people 
possess any. I have already shown how rare it is to have 
a good command of French. In Mr. Howells's story, 
"A Woman's Reason," Helen Harkness is described as 



j6 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

having received the best education which money could 
buy, and yet when she tried to think of a means of self- 
support, she found her knowledge of music and art and 
the languages altogether too superficial for the purpose. 
It is true we do not wish for accomplishments for the 
sake of earning our living ; but unless they go deep enough 
to make that possible, we may have a right to wonder 
whether they deserve to be called accomplishments. A 
real accomplishment involves intellect. 

But suppose we never can sing or draw or dance well, 
is that any reason for not doing the best we can? Not 
if we keep our eyes steadily turned in the right direction. 
If we love beauty, we must wish to do all we can to make 
our own little corner beautiful. We may not succeed in 
producing beauty ourselves, but every attempt we make 
helps us to see beauty, and even to show it to others. A 
selfish girl will hope that no one will detect her false 
notes in singing ; an unselfish girl will rejoice that others 
have a truer ear than her own. 

I could never feel with Keats that beauty and truth 
are identical ; yet in the highest sense this must be true, 
and beauty is one of the great essentials of life. No one 
can be making the "most of the stuff" who does not 
love beauty more and more as time goes on. And so I 
should like every girl to try to become accomplished ; 
only let her be sure that she does it for love of beauty 
and not for love of herself. 



CULTIVATION OF THE LOVE OF BEAUTY. // 

I cannot tell a girl how to become a musician or an 
artist. If she has such an aim she must have special 
teachers ; and even then she will not succeed unless Nature 
has given her some power. But so far as culture and 
character go, the love of beauty is more important 
than the ability to create it. How can we nourish this 
love? 

Most of us are blind to some forms of beauty. Per- 
haps we are carried out of ourselves by fine music, but 
hardly know the difference between a fine picture and a 
daub. A sunset moves us, but the greatest poetry tires 
us. How can we help ourselves ? 

Now only those who can themselves draw or paint or 
work in clay can really criticise a work of art, though 
one who has keen powers of observation with the neces- 
sary mental grasp can form some judgment of its merits. 
I cannot teach anybody to be a critic. Yet shall we not 
all try to see the little we can see of every kind of 
beauty? Though I cannot speak with authority, I feel 
inclined to say something about the study of art, for my 
experience leads me to think that untaught girls are less 
awake to the real meaning of paintings and statuary than 
to most other forms of beauty, — especially in this country, 
where outside of a few large cities there is no oppor- 
tunity whatever to see good models. Indeed few Amer- 
icans know anything of art. Those we call cultivated 
simply know about it, — the great names, the schools, the 



78 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

galleries where the famous pictures are to be found, etc. 
Even so much is very pleasant, but it has no deep 
foundation. 

Mrs. Oliphant has brought out this distinction clearly 
in "Agnes." Agnes was the daughter of a blacksmith, a 
man of high character, refined feeling, and good intellect. 
She was like her father, and had all the instincts of a 
lady. She married a man of station, who appeared to 
be her superior, but who was so only in externals. He 
took her to Italy, and she began to know his friends. The 
pictures entirely bewildered her. She loved all kinds of 
beauty. Nature or the best poetry touched her far more 
deeply than it did any one else in that English colony. 
She was even able to respond to music as she ought, but 
she could never say the right thing about a picture. Now 
it was not true that most of her husband's friends really 
saw more than she did ; they simply knew what they 
were expected to see and despised her for not knowing. 

Few persons do see what is to be seen, and so long as 
a foolish vanity makes them wish to appear as if they did 
see, no progress is possible. Not long ago I had the 
pleasure of passing an afternoon in the studio of an artist 
who has just returned to this country after living many 
years abroad. In speaking of the different atmosphere 
for work here and in Europe, he said that America was 
disheartening, because no one seemed to care to find out 
what an artist was trying to do. " Bostonians," he said, 



CULTIVATION OF THE LOVE OF BEAUTY. 79 

"would seldom hazard any praise for fear of praising 
the wrong thing. New Yorkers," he added with frank 
simplicity, " are even more ignorant than Bostonians ; but 
they have a more genial effect on an artist, for they will 
admire freely, not being so conceited nor so afraid of 
making a mistake ! " 

An able New York critic said to a friend of mine, 
"When you look at a picture, do not say, 'I like it,' or 
* I don't like it,' at first ; but try to see what there is 
in it." 

All artists mean to express the beauty they themselves 
see. It may be very little, and they may not succeed in 
expressing even that. If they fail in expression, our 
study will be barren, though it may perhaps leach us 
something of the value of technique. But if they have 
expressed even a little beauty, it will often be just that 
which we should not have seen without their help, for 
every artist must emphasize that part of the beauty of 
the universe which comes within his own range of vision, 
and the universe is so vast that no one sees it all. One 
artist has an eye for colour, one for form, another for life 
and action, another still sees through the dull and faded 
features of common faces to the soul beyond, and their 
pictures silently help us to see the same things as if a 
friend stood at our side and pointed them out. 

If we try to see what there is in a picture, I do not 
think our time is quite wasted, even if we study poor 



80 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

ones. If there is nothing there — or nothing for us — we 
shall soon find it out. Still, we want the best from the 
very beginning to supply us with standards of excellence. 
Let us at least study what we believe to be the best 
within our reach. In Boston, for instance, we know that 
the Art Museum is full of objects worth seeing. The 
pictures are not as good as the statuary ; and if we have 
no friend to guide us, perhaps the best thing we can do 
is to begin with the sculptures of the Parthenon, which 
we know to belong to the most perfect period of Greek 
art. 

But suppose we want to look at pictures. I think it 
would be a good plan to spend an hour some day in a 
single room, looking at each painting and trying to find 
out its value. Then, having made our first crude obser- 
vations, let us ask the one among our friends who knows 
most of art what he thinks on these points. Or, if we 
have seen something by a famous artist, we may read 
about him, and even if we do not meet with any explicit 
criticism of the painting we have been examining, we are 
sure to find some estimate of the qualities belonging to 
his work in general. Now we can return to the pictures 
themselves, and see whether we are inclined to hold to 
our first judgment. 

It is not best to look at many works of art at once. 
We do not fairly see them. But the dullest of us can 
usually find something of worth if we will take time. 



CULTIVATION OF THE LOVE OF BEAUTY. 8 1 

For example, among the reproductions of certain reliefs 
from the tomb of Ti, in the first Egyptian room of the 
Boston Art Museum, is one in which the careless girl 
would notice simply a few cattle with their drivers, and 
she would probably then pass on to the next. I cannot 
say what the hieroglyphics of the panel may mean. It 
may be that they tell the whole story. But you can dis- 
cover it for yourself. If you will stand before the sculp- 
ture for a few minutes, you will notice that one of the 
men is carrying a calf on his shoulders, — a pitiful, anx- 
ious calf, which is turning its head backward. Next in 
order follow three cows, and you can instantly pick out 
the mother of the calf by the distress in her attitude. 
Now, you may not call this work of some long- dead 
Egyptian beautiful, but it is touching ; and even a young 
girl who knows nothing of Egyptian history would feel a 
thrill of kinship with that ancient people when she had 
found out the meaning of this representation for herself. 
Those of us who have no natural taste for art are in great 
danger of depending on the title of a picture for its 
meaning and not on the picture itself. This is what art- 
ists condemn as judging a picture from a literary point 
of view. I suppose, for that matter, that all of us who 
have not been taught correct drawing and colouring must 
inevitably judge pictures largely from a literary point of 
view ; but if we only find some real beauty in them, that 
is better than nothing. 

6 



82 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

In New York the Metropolitan Museum is open to 
everybody. In Washington, in St. Louis, and in many 
other large cities there are collections accessible to the 
public containing at least some works of undoubted ex- 
cellence which a beginner might study with a certainty 
of being repaid. There are thousands of country girls 
all over the United States who are in the habit of going 
into these cities several times a year at least to do shop- 
ping, and if they chose to give even an hour of their 
busy day to the best art to be had in the city, — not 
merely a hasty glance to the latest exhibition in an art- 
dealer's rooms, — they would find that their power of 
appreciating the best slowly increased from year to year. 
Of course the girls who live in these cities have a hun- 
dred times better opportunity. Do they use it ? 

A few years ago there was a genuine Raphael in the 
Metropolitan Museum, — the Madonna of the Candela- 
brum. How many New York girls of leisure took the 
pains to study it? 

But though thousands of girls might look at these fine 
collections if they would, there are a million at least in 
the United States who have no access to anything of the 
kind. What can such girls do ? Not much, but some- 
thing. It is now easy to get really good unmounted 
photographs of most of the great pictures of the world. 
Those who cannot find them nearer can always send to 
the Soule Photograph Co., ;^^8 Washington Street, Bos- 



CULTIVATION OF THE LOVE OF BEAUTY. 83 

ton. If a club could be formed in any town or even in 
two or three adjoining towns, so that by the payment of 
a small fee twenty or thirty dollars' worth of photographs 
could be bought every year, and the members would 
study these, it would not be long before they would know 
more about pictures than most people who are called 
cultivated, and if they faithfully looked for the best in 
every picture they would gradually learn to find it. 

Those who cannot afford to buy even photographs may 
be able to borrow such as illustrate particular artists and 
schools from the Art Department of the " Study At 
Home Society," 41 Marlborough Street, Boston. 

Then suppose we look also for the material for pictures. 
In the most obscure circle there is always some wrinkled 
woman with a sweet mouth, or some toil-worn man with 
clear eyes, who may give to us the same elevation of 
thought that we get most easily from a work of art. 

I heard a cultivated lady say once, '' I never cared 
much for Nature till after I had studied paintings." This 
is a curious reversal of the true order of things. You 
see, however, it is true that the artists who work sincerely 
do show us what most of us are slow to find without 
them ; yet if we have the determination, we can find the 
beauty for ourselves, and that is better than to know all 
the galleries of Europe by heart. 

In the study of painting or sculpture or architecture 
books will sometimes help us, — not of course to produce, 



84 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

but to appreciate. I once heard a distinguished Hbrarian 
say in answer to some one who had asked for a Hst of 
such books, " Begin with Kugler." The half-dozen small 
illustrated volumes of Kugler's " Hand-book of Painting " 
would probably take a girl further than most works which 
are equally accessible on the way to just views about 
pictures. 

For those girls who expect to study the pictures of 
Italy at first hand there is probably no guide to compare 
with Burckhardt's " Cicerone." Passavant's illustrated 
" Life of Raphael " is of great service to those who stay 
at home ; and there are other illustrated lives of the 
artists, — particularly Black's " Michael Angelo," Crowe 
and Cavalcaselle's "Titian/' the " Leonardo da Vinci " 
and " Albert Dlirer " of Mrs. Heaton, and her translation 
of Meyer's " Correggio," — which are of value. 

If you wish to know something of sculpture, no single 
work will give you a clearer and more trustworthy outline 
of the subject than Mrs. Lucy M. Mitchell's " History of 
Ancient Sculpture." It has the merit of being more 
entertaining than many standard works, and better than 
all, the illustrations are unusually fine, even the wood- 
engravings being artistic. A supplementary portfolio of 
twenty phototype plates, entitled " Selections from An- 
cient Sculpture," may be used for further illustration by 
those of you who can afford such a work. Mrs. Mitchell 
has a special power in describing a work of art in few 



CULTIVATION OF THE LOVE OF BEAUTY. 85 

words which help a beginner to see where its real value 
lies, so that her descriptions taken in connection with 
her illustrations are a true education for the reader. 

But in this chapter I am less concerned to show how 
we may learn about works of art than how we may 
actually see what they mean. We want to enter into the 
life of others far away, and under all disguises. We look, 
for instance, at such casts as those of Lincoln Cathedral 
in the Art Museum in Boston, and we hastily say they are 
grotesque and not beautiful. Yet if we look a little 
longer at some of those queer angels perched up in pain- 
ful positions, while they twang their antiquated musical 
instruments, we begin to see in their blissful smiles a hint 
of the aspiring souls within. 

But while we try to see the beauty we are sure there 
must be in any masterpiece which has stood the test of 
centuries, let us never pretend to find what we do not 
find. Let us not be ashamed of our ignorance, and let 
us express our judgments with entire simplicity and 
modesty. 

I think sometimes that those who are totally unin- 
structed have a better chance than those who have had 
generations of culture, because they have no false theories 
to mislead them. Our Puritan ancestors sternly set 
beauty aside, and a great many of us were accordingly 
born without an eye for colour or an ear for harmony. 
That is a great loss ; but if we inherit the sincerity of 



86 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

our forefathers, it may help us more to catch the divine 
meaning in any form of art than a quick eye or a sensitive 
ear. 

How shall those of us not specially endowed learn to 
love the most beautiful music? By hearing it, of course. 
It is on this principle that all the private schools in 
Boston close early on Fridays so that the young scholars 
may spend their afternoon at the Symphony Rehearsal. 

I heard a young lady say not long ago, " I have had to 
go to the Symphony Concerts ever since they were 
founded. I used to think they were tedious, and beg to 
stay at home ; but my father said that if I could not 
appreciate such music, I must learn to appreciate it, and 
now it seems the most beautiful thing in the world." I 
do not think such heroic measures would succeed in all 
cases ; and at all events it is not possible for every girl in 
the land to go to a Symphony Concert every Friday 
afternoon. Even in Boston, as the speculators buy most 
of the seats, such an education is out of the reach of 
most poor girls. Very well. Then hear the best music 
which is within reach. If you cannot hear Beethoven, 
some one in your own village may be able to sing hymns 
sweetly. Ask this friend to sing to you often. If you 
practise music yourself, do not think a false note is of no 
consequence ; and do not beg your teacher to give you 
something showy when you might learn something noble. 



CULTIVATION OF THE LOVE OF BEAUTY. 8/ 

Few of my readers will be so far away from music that 
sometime they might not hear a thoroughly good con- 
cert if they would go without a ribbon or two for the 
sake of it. Only the musical will get the full meaning of 
music ; but all of us have a deep need of all we can get, 
and something is within the reach of every one who 
longs for it. 

Some years ago, when in England, an attractive Amer- 
ican girl said to me, with a mortified air, " I will never 
own it to the English, but it is true that we Americans 
have dreadful voices, just as they say we have. Only 
hear my sister's tone across this room ! " 

Now we must admit that few of us have really sweet 
voices ; and yet if we love beauty, and especially beauti- 
ful music, we must wish to do what we can to make our 
voices musical. I have sometimes thought this was 
impossible unless we could have an exceptionally fine 
vocal teacher, and that is beyond the reach of most of 
us ; but I have lately seen some very practical sugges- 
tions on this subject in a little book on " Our Mother 
Tongue " by Mr. Theodore Mead, which I am pretty sure 
would help any girl who would faithfully follow them. 

Whether sweet voices are possible to us or not, it is 
in our power to cultivate gentle and pure speech. I 
doubt whether there is any more genuine accomplish- 
ment than this, or one which on the whole gives more 
refined pleasure to those about us, though it is not showy. 



88 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

Clear enunciation and perfect but easy pronunciation 
are marks of a lady hardly to be mistaken. To reach 
this standard care and thought and practice are neces- 
sary. And there are many books to help us. Among 
the dictionaries we shall probably find " Worcester " most 
useful. '' Our Mother Tongue," which I have already 
mentioned, contains in small compass more available 
information than any other book I am acquainted with. 
And as several girls in earnest can learn more than 
one can learn alone, I should like to suggest that some 
of you who are aware that your manner of speaking is 
not all you desire it to be should form a little club for 
improving not only your voices, but your pronunciation, 
and that you should begin by practising together from 
Mr. Mead's vocabulary. 

When you become mistress of this accomphshment, 
you will be able to add something to the pleasure of many 
a friend who laughs at your paintings and votes your 
music a bore. 

The love of flowers is a natural endowment of almost 
every girl. Their beauty is so simple and so common that 
no one need be shut out from it. If a woman studies 
botany, she learns to find a thousand delicate wild blos- 
soms which she would not otherwise have seen. If she 
must stay at home, as so many women must, she can 
often have her own little garden, or at least a stand of 



CULTIVATION OF THE LOVE OF BEAUTY. 89 

plants in her window, and by cultivating them actually 
bear her part in the creation of beauty. Few are too 
poor or too busy to miss altogether the gentle ministra- 
tions of flowers ; but some women fail to catch the true 
spirit of them after all. I know a fine woman who is a 
botanist. She can give the scientific name of every 
flower in the county. She has an immense herbarium, 

and win — 

" prose 
O'er books of travelled seamen, 
And show you slips of all that grows 
From England to Van Diemen." 

She is to me a very interesting woman ; her knowledge 
is accurate and thorough, and her study has scientific 
value as well as being an innocent and healthful recrea- 
tion. But I have never once heard her say of a flower, 
" How beautiful it is ! " A friend of hers who knows 
nothing of botany cultivates a bright, sweet garden. 
The botanist is inclined to look down on the horticultur- 
ist and think she knows nothing of flowers. But is it 
not better to see their beauty than to know their names ? 
Yet I have known a woman who successfully cultivated 
the most exquisite plants who said, " I would not have 
flowers at all if I could not have finer ones than any one 
else in the village." She did have finer ones than any 
one else in the village ; but it is certain that she did not 
love their beauty, for then she must have wished every 
garden in the place to be fragrant with it. 



90 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

The love of flowers is a part of the great love of 
Nature. Nature is freely given to all of us. 

"June may be had by the poorest comer." 

I do not believe there is any girl who will read these 
pages who has not felt the thrill of the spring woods or 
the autumn sunsets or the starry sky; but there are a 
great many girls who take very little time to look at these 
things. They sit over their crochet work when the twi- 
light sky is flushed with rose and violet and the great 
planets are shedding their golden light through the veil 
of colour, and think it is provoking that it is growing dark. 
On the rocks by the seashore they read a flimsy novel. I 
am afraid most of us must remember beautiful scenes 
which we have made commonplace — and worse — by 
gossiping conversation. The trouble with us is not that 
we cannot feel beauty, nor that it is not lying all about 
us, but that we are. not willing to choose it before the 
trivialities which interpose to hide it from us. I do not 
mean, of course, that we are not to laugh or talk in the 

open air ; 

" Is this a time to be gloomy and sad 
When our Mother Nature laughs around .'' " 

I do mean, that we ought to take the time to see the 
glory of the world, that we ought to rejoice that it is 
our duty to take the time to see it, and that we ought not 
to let our meaner selves obstruct our vision. Those of us 
who have time should take a walk every day, — not sim- 



CULTIVATION OF THE LOVE OF BEAUTY. 9 1 

ply for the sake of our health, but expressly to see the 
wonderful sky and the wonderful earth. And who has 
not time ? There are unhappy women crowded in city 
garrets, who must work for their lives, who can hardly 
lift their eyes to see the sunset shining in at their attic 
windows ; but those of us who can read a book need not 
plead that we have no time to see beauty. 

There is only one kind of reading which can illuminate 
our lives as Nature can, and that is poetry. I have spoken 
of that again and again. It seems to me so essential to 
any true development that I must speak of it in many 
different chapters. It is not enough to read poetry ; we 
must learn it. If we are too dull to know what is beau- 
tiful ourselves, let us learn some great poem which others 
have told us is beautiful, and in learning it we shall think 
of it so much that we shall see the beauty. An easy 
rhyme has a danger, — we may catch the rhythm more 
quickly than the meaning. Some of the finest poetry is 
in the form of sonnets ; and these are so difficult to mem- 
orize that we are sure to gain their secret in the effort. 

To show you what I mean, I am going to copy here a 
familiar sonnet of Wordsworth which I do not think too 
difficult for most young girls, and ask if each of you who 
does not already know it will not learn it by heart. 

" It is a beauteous evening, calm and free ; 
The holy time is quiet as a nun 
Breathless with adoration ; the broad sun 
Is sinking down in its tranquillity ; 



92 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

The gentleness of heaven is on the sea. 

Listen ! the mighty Being is awake, 

And doth with his eternal motion make 

A sound like thunder everlastingly. 

Dear child ! dear girl ! that walkest with me here, 

If thou appear'st untouched by solemn thought, 

Thy nature is not therefore less divine. 

Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year; 

And worshipp'st at the temple's inner shrine, 

God being with thee when we know it not." 

If you will learn this, I think you will feel as if you 
had a treasure of new beauty in your heart. I think 
you will be ready to give up some trivial occupation for 
a few minutes every day to learn poetry of this quality. 

It is sometimes hard to find time for even noble work 
without neglecting still more imperative duties. But one 
reason we who are older now find it so hard to get time 
for what is so well worth doing is that when we were 
girls and might have chosen the best, we did not put the 
right emphasis on our various employments, and our 
lives became tangled almost past help. Perhaps some 
girl who sees a life of leisure before her may stop here 
and resolve to give a little time every day to poetry. If 
she does this, I should not be surprised to find that ten 
years later, in the stress of family cares or of business 
or of deeds of mercy, she should still find time for the 
daily crumb of beauty which will be essential to her Hfe. 

I know of a young girl growing up on a Western ranch, 
far away from people and from schools. Her life is a 



CULTIVATION OF THE LOVE OF BEAUTY. 93 

busy one, full of the petty strains which come from cease- 
less household drudgery. Her mother — a highly culti- 
vated lady — has very little time to teach her children, 
the immediate needs of every day being so urgent. Yet 
she finds room for the best things. Every evening she 
and her little daughter sit by a western window and watch 
the sun set while the mother repeats the finest poetry 
and the child learns it from her lips. In this way they 
have committed to memory ''Tintern Abbey," and they 
have learned how Nature can — 

" So impress 
With quietness and beauty, and so feed 
With lofty thoughts " 

that not even so dreary and labourious a life as theirs 
"shall e'er prevail against " them. 

Shakspeare and Milton and Chaucer and Burns are 
thus constantly in their hearts, and their life is far more 
poetic than that of most women whose homes are 
crowded with works of art, and whose daily occupations 
are in themselves beautiful. 

Miss Lucy Larcom, whose lovely " New England Girl- 
hood " I hope every girl will read, tells us that when she 
was working in a Lowell cotton factory at thirteen or 
fourteen years old, she obtained permission to tend some 
frames that stood directly in front of the windows look- 
ing off on the beautiful Merrimac River, and she made 



94 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

her window- seat into a small library of poetry, pasting 
its sides all over with newspaper clippings. These she 
could look at and even learn by heart without interrupting 
her work. 

It is not always best to combine work and study ; but 
most girls who have much manual labour to do will find 
that some of it is so mechanical that their minds are free, 
and will be all the better for being filled with poetry. 
When rocking a cradle or knitting there is a mental 
breathing-space. I have known girls who pinned up a 
poem on the wall to learn while washing dishes, and 
some have even ironed plain clothes in a satisfactory 
manner with a book open before them on the table. A 
poem differs from other reading in this. It is not only 
unnecessary to read more than a line or two at a time, 
but it is usually better to think over one line a few 
minutes before going on to the next. 

And now, at last, is it not better to love beauty and 
seek it for its own sake than to wish to appropriate it to 
ourselves as an accomplishment? If we have the gifts 
and the opportunities which make it possible for us to be 
accomplished, then our genuine love of beauty will make 
our accomplishments something more than a mere means 
of exhibiting ourselves, — they will be a blessing to 
everybody around us. 



VIII. 

HOW SHALL WE READ? 

A URORA LEIGH says : — 

" We get no good 
By being ungenerous, even to a book, 
And calculating profits, — so much help 
By so much reading. It is rather when 
We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge 
Sonl-for-iuard, headlong, into a book's profo.und, 
Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth, — 
'T is then we get the right good from a book." 

Those of us who feel that reading has been the dehght 
and blessmg of our lives are ready to echo this outburst. 

I am a Httle afraid, however, that when girls are left 
entirely to their own sweet will the books they plunge 
gloriously into are almost all stories. I like stories too 
well myself to find fault with this, and I think it would 
be wise for parents and guardians to scatter so many 
good stories in the pathway of an ardent girl that she 
would have no time left for trash. Still, as ice-cream 
would cloy the appetite if we began a meal with it, I 
believe it might be well for any girl to spend the first 
part of her leisure every day in reading for study rather 



96 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

than merely for recreation, — that is, unless she has already 
done her full share of study in school. And if she is a 
bright girl and has any access to really worthy books, she 
will be sure to find herself plunging gloriously in before 
she has gone far. 

An old lady tells me that when she was a young girl 
teaching her first school she was very indignant with one 
of the committee, who criticised her reading-class on the 
ground that no child should ever read a single word of 
which he could not give the definition. "Then they 
never would read anything," she replied, with spirit. I 
hope I shall not be thought superficial if I say my sym- 
pathies are all with her. To be always breaking the 
thread of one's thought to look up a word in the diction- 
ary or to trace out a classical allusion seems to me enough 
to check any ordinary enthusiasm. As for words, by 
the time we have read the same word a dozen times in 
different connections we know its meaning far better than 
if we had halted painfully at its first appearance and 
looked for it in the dictionary. 

One of the largest-minded men I ever knew once 
remarked in my hearing that he had advised his wife's 
litde fifteen-year-old Enghsh maid-servant to read 
Herbert Spencer's " Education." " Do you think she 
can understand it? " I asked. " Not all of it," he replied. 
" That is the reason I gave it to her. She is a clever 
girl, and ought to make something of herself. It is 



HOW SHALL WE READ? 97 

wholesome for her to find there are things beyond her 
comprehension." 

I would not discourage any girl from looking up all 
the new words and all the classical allusions which 
she feels an earnest wish to understand ; but I believe 
the best way to read is to take a paragraph, a chap- 
ter, and sometimes even a book as a whole first, and 
then return to it again and again till we have made it 
thoroughly our own. I suppose we look up definitions 
that we may better understand the author's meaning, 
so we do not wish to lose the drift of his argument in 
the attempt. 

I once knew a conscientious young lady who under- 
took some difficult scientific reading. An elder friend 
had pursued the same course a year or two previously, 
and the two seldom met even in the street that the 
younger did not inquire into the meaning of some knotty 
paragraph which was barring her way. " Read on, and 
then come back to it," was always the laughing reply. 
At last, one day the younger said, " I verily believe you 
are right. When I can't understand a sentence, the next 
sentence usually explains it." 

Who ever did understand anything beyond the primer 
at first reading ? It is superficial to think you do ; but 
if you have not the courage and perseverance to reread 
the first chapters of any book that is worth while in the 
light of the last chapters, then perhaps you are super- 

7 



98 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

ficial. In books and a few other things, the whole is 
greater than the sum of all its parts. 

It is generally a good plan in studying a lesson to read 
it all first before beginning to learn it. The Harvard 
examination papers give the direction, " Read over a 
passage several times before attempting to write your 
translation." This saves time in the end. 

Even a novel that treats life and character with any 
wisdom deserves rereading. If you lay it aside ten 
years and then come back to it, you find far more in it 
than at first^ for your own experience and growth have 
opened your eyes ; but even if you reread it at once, 
the development of character at the close teaches some- 
thing new of the meaning of the first scenes. 

All this is still truer of solid books. I have heard 
thoughtful people say, for instance, that Emerson has no 
dialectic. (Do not look up the meaning of '^dialectic" 
just yet.) They say that every sentence is a gem, full of 
beauty and truth and power ; that one of his essays is a 
collection of such jewels ; but that there is no dominating 
thought in each to which every sentence contributes. 
This is not true ; but it is not at the first reading that we 
find out it is not true. There is dialectic in every essay ; 
but the closely packed jewels are so brilliant that each 
one absorbs our whole attention for the time, and we are 
too exhausted at the end of the chapter to recall so 
many thoughts and understand their bearing on each 



HOW SHALL WE READ? 99 

Other. But we take up the same essay the next day and 
the next, and at last we see the whole design. Even a 
young girl would find it well worth her while to do this 
with an essay or two, though I know I must not expect 
many girls to care deeply for Emerson till they are far 
beyond their teens, and I shall have no quarrel with them 
because their Scott and Dickens are so much dearer to 
them, for I love Scott and Dickens myself. And yet 
some of you find even Scott dull ! 

Here let me say that it is never best to give up altogether 
reading an author we know to be great even if we can- 
not understand him. Keep on reading a little at a time, 
at short intervals, and the light is sure to dawn gradually. 
Especially if a book contains an argument, we must try 
to look at it as a whole, before we can fully master 
details ; but we need not do it all at once. Never work 
over any subject after your brain begins to be tired. 
Turn to something else till to-morrow, and then the 
crooked places will be made straight. 

A great work usually has some message for all of us. I 
know a child of five years who already begins to love 
Shakspeare. Her mother has taken pains to read to her 
some of the fairy parts of the " Midsummer Night's 
Dream," arranging them in a connected story. When 
the child seems restless, the mother skips the long pas- 
sages, and confines her reading simply to the story, but 
now she puts in a speech of Titania and again one of 



100 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

Oberon, and explains as much of it as the child seems to 
enjoy. The mother does not read the " Midsummer 
Night's Dream" every day or every week to the child ; 
but after a litde interval, she asks, " Shall we have Titania 
again?" and the child thinks it is a treat. Moreover, 
the little one already goes about the house singing or 
reciting, " I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows," 
or "How now, spirit, whither wander you?" Suppose 
the mother had waited till the child could understand 
every word of the play before beginning to read it, do 
you think the child would ever have found the same 
charm in Puck and Bottom and Peasblossom and Mustard 
Seed? 

I know a young girl who has an absorbing musical 
genius. She also has a rare power of appreciating fine 
poetry ; but oddly enough, the other members of her fam- 
ily care only for music, so that she has been left to grow 
up without any training in literature ; and not having 
formed the habit of reading she now reads very little and 
very slowly, her time and thoughts being given almost 
exclusively to her musical education. Yet I know no 
other girl who reads so satisfactorily. When she was 
about eighteen, she discovered that Shakspeare was meant 
for her. This is the way she makes acquaintance with a 
play. First she reads it through just as she has time and 
inclination, thinking over any passage that interests or 
puzzles her, and marking the lines that are so grand or 



HOW SHALL WE READ? lOI 

beautiful that she feels as if she must learn them. Then 
she looks up the history which may happen to be con- 
nected with the play. Occasionally she reads a criticism. 
Next she learns the lines she has marked. Afterwards 
she reads the whole play again. If she has a chance to 
see it on the stage, she reads it once more before going 
to the theatre, and still again after she has seen it. It 
usually takes her six or eight weeks to read a play, and 
she enjoys every moment of her reading. " If I am 
blue," she says, " I take up my Shakspeare, and forget 
my troubles." 

I know another girl, who has lived among literary peo- 
ple all her life, who will read a sublime passage of 
Shakspeare aloud smoothly, and almost with feeling ; and 
yet if you ask her at the end of it to tell you its sub- 
stance, her ideas about it prove to be hazy. Rapid 
readers are in danger of falling into this careless habit. 
If you are conscious of having such a habit, stop at the 
end of every paragraph and see if you know exactly 
what you have been reading about. Indeed you are one of 
the girls who probably need to look up every definition as 
they go along, for every check to the mere flow of words 
will help you to think, true as it is that whenever atten- 
tion to mere words checks the flow of thought there is 
some danger of losing the best of the reading. Under 
some circumstances it is really worth while to look up 
your classical and Scriptural allusions, though I have 



102 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

always firmly believed that the way to understand thera 
was to read the classics and the Scriptures instead of 
using Lempriere's Dictionary or Cruden's Concordance. 
Of course we all wish to be accurate ; and though we 
must not sacrifice the whole of a subject to its de- 
tails, we must go in search of a great many irksome 
particulars. 

It is often thought that accurate knowledge depends 
on one's intellectual and moral firmness, and certainly 
it does have to do with character. Nevertheless it is 
frequently a matter of access to books. We do not all 
have the " Encyclopaedia Britannica " at our elbow, even 
when we are quite willing to take the trouble to look 
up a doubtful question. We do all need a well-equipped 
private library if our reading is to go very deep. Pub- 
lic libraries are a great blessing, but I am afraid they 
tempt us to spend some of the money in bonbons which 
we ought rightfully to spend in books. Free school 
text-books have the same tendency. They were intro- 
duced in Massachusetts with the best intentions, but I 
have always felt that they defrauded all but the very 
poor of their right to own their school-books. A young 
lady forgets a date in history. She knows exactly where 
to find it in the text-book she used in school, and if 
she owns the book she refers to it and remembers the 
date ever after. But if she must spend an hour in a 
public library looking up the matter, the chances are 



HOW SHALL WE READ? 103 

she never does it, and is always at a loss. Of course 
we are still free to buy our text- books, but when our 
purse is light the temptation is strong to make use of 
those provided. 

Most of us cannot buy many books, but it is worth 
while to buy as many as we can. We all want an un- 
abridged dictionary and an encyclopaedia and a few 
books of reference ; still, if we must choose, do we not 
need Shakspeare even more than a dictionary, and do 
not most of us get more help in noble living from the 
pages of George Eliot than from an encyclopaedia? 

Whenever you buy a book, buy one that means some- 
thing to you, even if it is a novel or a child's story. 

For what is the object of reading? 

Is it not that we may enter into the best thoughts of 
the men and women of all time and be helped by them 
to our own best and fullest life? Now all writers do 
not help all readers. Of course a book must be genu- 
ine to help anybody ; but the child or the undeveloped 
man or woman may sometimes be best reached by 
simple books which are too elementary to be even 
glanced at by those who have reached a higher stage of 
culture. I myself was brought up on the Rollo books 
and Miss Edgeworth's stories, and retain a fondness 
for them to this day. But I had a schoolmate — a 
girl of genius — who laughed to scorn the idea that any 
child could be interested in such every-day philoso- 



104 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

phy as these works contain. She said that she would 
rather by half have read Jonathan Edwards "■ On the 
Affections " when she was a child, and I remember feel- 
ing quite ashamed of my commonplace tastes. Now, 
however, I am very glad that since I was not a genius, 
my parents provided Abbot and Miss Edgeworth for 
me instead of Edwards. 

Though none of us can afford to be careless in any 
of our reading, it has always seemed to me right that 
there should be a great difference between reading for 
study and for recreation. Some teachers say that if a 
girl wishes to read a novel when she is studying the 
reign of Elizabeth, it will be as much recreation for her 
to read " Kenilworth " as any other novel. But that 
depends upon whether she chooses the book herself. 
Recreation implies freedom. It is a good thing to read 
" Kenilworth " when studying the reign of Ehzabeth. 
Most of us get our first vivid ideas of English history 
from Scott and Shakspeare. But if a tired girl thought 
a novel would rest her, and saw both '' Kenilworth " 
and "John Halifax" lying on the table, and knew that 
of the two she must take '' Kenilworth," even if she 
liked it as well as " John Halifax " she would have a 
feeling of restraint sure to tell on her nerves at last ; 
and she would not only get no relaxation from her 
reading, but it is doubtful whether she would learn as 
much by dwelling on one subject all the time. By 



HOW SHALL WE READ? 105 

looking long at a colour the eye becomes fatigued, and 
it is refreshing to see another. I once visited an asylum 
for the feeble-minded where the children were taught 
to read by means of words printed in large letters on 
strips of pasteboard. A teacher who was trying to in- 
struct a beginner held in her hand two strips, one with 
the word " eye " upon it, and the other with the word 
'• blackboard." " Why do yoa use such different words? " 
I asked. '•' Because it is so much easier for a child to 
distinguish words which do not look alike," she repUed. 
Even if from the educational point of view it were 
best to pursue one subject to the bitter end, there would 
be no recreation in such reading. Play ought to be 
play, and should not be haunted by a sense of duty. But 
as rough or cruel play can never be allowed, so silly 
and bad books cannot be tolerated. Wise parents put 
so many good books in the way of their children that 
the taste for them is formed unconsciously, and there 
is never any feeling of restraint. But some girls must 
form their own taste, and if they are in earnest, it will 
not take them very long to banish all wish for worth- 
less literature, though perhaps for a few months recrea- 
tion will not be entirely recreation. 



IX. 

WHAT SHALL WE READ? 

T WONDER if any girls may wish that I would give 
them a few suggestions as to the books they should 
read. I cannot lay down a course of reading because 
that should vary with the needs of each girl. Still, in 
almost every chapter of this volume I have had occasion 
to refer to some book or other which might give help in 
some direction ; and by the time you have read these 
books, you will perhaps be able to judge for yourself 
what you most require. What I have to say here is 
more general. 

First, let us talk a little about novels. It is not alto- 
gether because girls are superficial that they crave so 
much of such food ; but partly because they rightly have 
a greater interest in life than in knowledge, and partly 
because a story makes so many obscure things clear. 
Some people must have everything in the form of a story 
if they are to understand it at all. 

Yet many of the greatest novels are ill-adapted to 
girls. In the first place, girls ought to know the good in 



WHAT SHALL WE READ? lO/ 

the world before they learn much of its evil, and in 
the second place they cannot really appreciate a novel 
which deals with the passions and temptations of older 
people till they have had some experience themselves. 
Any great novel requires and deserves study. Those 
who read it in girlhood must read it later in life also. 
Unless they do this, it is a greater loss in the develop- 
ment of mind and character to read a great novel pre- 
maturely than to try to master a work on science or 
language for which they are unprepared. 

Then, moreover, the coarseness girls are so carefully 
guarded from in books and in society does not really 
hurt them as much as worldliness. Girlhood is not the 
time for any novelist who does not believe that some- 
thing besides the actual is possible and necessary. What- 
ever Dickens's faults may be, he can be trusted here, 
and I never knew a girl who loved Dickens who was not 
large-hearted. If a girl appreciates Thackeray, "The 
Newcomes " is a better book for her to read than " Vanity 
Fair." Scott is one of the masters always to be trusted 
to present a natural world which is nevertheless rosy 
with the light of romance. 

There are half a dozen fresh, sweet story-writers girls 
are always the better for reading, — Mrs. Mulock-Craik, 
Mrs. Whitney, Miss Thackeray, Miss Yonge, Miss Alcott, 
Black. Many a girl in a rough and poor home learns 
how to be a gentlewoman from constant association with 



I08 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

their gentle heroines. Girls in every grade of society 
except the highest get as many of their ideas of manners 
from novels as from people. Every girl may have noble 
society in books. Faith Gartney, and Leshe Goldthwaite, 
and the March girls in " Little Women," and " D dear " 
in " Oif the Skelligs," and all Miss Mulock's dear girls, 
and Florence Dombey, and the Agnes of " David Cop- 
perfield," and Lily Dale and her sister Bell in Trollope's 
'' Small House at Allington " (though Trollope has a 
worldly touch, and I do not wonder that his fine humour 
seldom appeals to a girl), and Ethel Newcome, and 
Jeanie Deans, and Maggie with her cousin, little Lucy, in 
the " Mill on the Floss," and the Dorothea of " Middle- 
march " are always ready to be her friends. 

A girl ought to make the acquaintance of George 
Eliot's fine heroines while she is still a girl, but she must 
not think she can read George Eliot's novels once for 
all while she is in her teens. They must be studied for 
new meanings at every stage of life, just as Shakspeare's 
plays must be. 

School-girls do not have much time for solid reading 
beyond that prescribed by their teachers, and the thou- 
sands of girls who must earn their living as soon as they 
leave school have still less time ; but I hope that all who 
can spare an hour a day for reading will spend part of it 
on solid books. If we have a great deal of leisure, most 



WHAT SHALL WE READ? lOQ 

of our reading should take the form of study. We may 
for instance make ourselves at home in epoch after 
epoch of history, or we may study one science after an- 
other in something better than the school-girl fashion. 
With less leisure, we may still read to some purpose by 
spending a good many months on one subject. I once 
heard a lady say, " My daughter and I have spent the 
whole winter in Greece." She meant that they had 
read Greek history and Greek poetry and Greek phi- 
losophy, and had looked at reproductions of Greek art, 
though they had hardly been away from their own 
chimney-corner. 

Now there are thousands of books worth reading, and 
nobody can read them all. There have been many ad- 
mirable essays written on the choice of books. Emer- 
son's essay on " Books " in the volume " Society and 
Solitude " gives a splendid list of the great books of the 
world. Many of these works are far beyond the powers 
of young girls. I will not try to add to such a catalogue ; 
but there are a few suggestions I wish earnestly to make. 
One is that each reader should be guided by her natural 
powers in choosing what to read. I do not mean that 
we should read carelessly whatever strikes our fancy at 
the moment ; but as all of us who are honest with our- 
selves know what are our best gifts and our worst 
faults, that we should choose the subjects and the books 
which will develop our powers and correct our faults. 



no CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

For instance, if we love the Greeks and hate the Romans, 
while we are indifferent to the Egyptians, let us by all 
means make a thorough study of the Greeks, so that our 
zeal may be according to knowledge ; but let us make a 
thorough study of the Romans too, so that we may know 
whether our ill-will is due to their character or our own. 
Perhaps the study will show us some personal weaknesses 
which especially need treatment. We can put off read- 
ing about the Egyptians to a later date. Or, if we love 
philosophy and hate science, or vice vej^sa, the same 
rule holds. 

But whatever our tastes or talents, there are two kinds 
of reading essential for all, for men as well as women, 
for old as well as young. Of course you know that one 
of these is poetry. Sooner or later we must all know 
Shakspeare and Milton, Dante and Homer, and parts of 
Goethe by heart. These great poets rank with the Bible 
and with the bibles of other races in their influence upon 
us. And we cannot spare the lesser poets either. Girls 
especially^ to whom the '' Divine Comedy " or " Faust " 
sometimes seem so remote as to be sealed books, can find 
the most wholesome nutriment in Chaucer and Cowper 
and Burns, in Whittier and Longfellow and Lowell, in 
Mrs. Browning and Keats and Tennyson. Most of us 
have to wait till past girlhood, I am afraid, to understand 
Wordsworth ; and Browning, though he is worth the 
effort, taxes the greatest of our mature powers. 



WHAT SHALL WE READ? Ill 

Poetry cannot be translated, and yet the women who 
do not read Greek cannot afford to miss what even a 
translation can give of ^schylus and Sophocles and 
Euripides. The characters in their dramas and the 
high thought and action cannot be disguised even in the 
prose of another language. 

But after all, in poetry itself what we read is not the 
important thing. We should read poetry to give us a 
certain attitude of mind, a habit of thinking of noble 
things, of keeping our spirit in harmony with beauty and 
goodness and strength and love, that — 

"All 
The dreary intercourse of daily life 
Shall [not] prevail against us." 

'^ Poetry is the fact," says Matthew Arnold, in his won- 
derful essay at the beginning of Ward's " English Poets." 

The other kind of reading which is essential is the 
news ! This is not because we need to know the daily 
gossip of the whole world to save ourselves from daily 
mortification on account of our ignorance, but for a very 
different reason. The great object of our reading is to 
keep our mind in a certain state. Now, if we should 
read nothing but great poetry, we should lose touch with 
common, every-day life about us, and with all our fine 
thoughts, we might grow weak and selfish. We want to 
know how the whole world is living and acting. If we 
are to help to make it better, we must know its sorrows, its 



112 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

faults, even its crimes. How could we help anybody if we 
only gathered up our own robes out of the mire our fellow- 
creatures have fallen into? That kind of virtue is so 
weak that it is almost sure to give way in the moment of 
pressure. Of course I do not mean that we want to 
spend much time every day over a newspaper. A news- 
paper almost always dissipates the mind. That is the 
reason I cannot look with favour on Sunday papers. We 
ought to save Sunday for the higher life. 

" Sundays the pillars are, 
On which heav'n's palace arched lies." 

" The week were dark, but for thy light; 
Thy torch doth show the way." 

There is a passage in Bryce's " American Common- 
wealth " in which he speaks of the attitude of mind pro- 
duced by reading newspapers. He says that even if a 
newspaper contains a great essay or poem, scarcely any 
reader gets the full value of the fine thought because his 
mind is not adjusted to receive it. He is hurrying 
through the paper as fast as he can with the purpose of 
getting at facts, not thoughts. This would be a sufficient 
reason for not spending much time over newspapers, 
even if there were no other ; and I should be very sorry 
if American women should ever form the habit, which is 
becoming so pernicious among American men, of depend- 
ing on newspapers for their chief mental food. There 
is not very much danger of this at present. Girls at 



WHAT SHALL WE READ? II3 

least, not caring much for business or politics, find news- 
papers very dull. There is more danger that they will 
spend so much time over the lighter magazines, where 
information and thought are served up piecemeal, that 
they will have no time or strength for reading of value. 
Nevertheless, a girl who wishes to develop into a well- 
balanced woman must supplement her reading of great 
poetry with a little reading of a dry newspaper. I think 
a weekly paper much better for a girl just beginning to 
read newspapers than a daily. She will then get the 
important news without wasting her time over trash ; 
and when at last her interests become so wide that she 
needs a daily paper, she will know how to discriminate 
between what she wants to read and what she wants to 
skip. 



X. 

TRAVEL. 

npRAVELLING is delightful. Even when it is 
-*- fatiguing, it is, as somebody says, " delightful to 
have travelled." And as a means of gaining information 
it is unsurpassed. Dr. Edward Everett Hale tells us that 
this is the way to ''realize our geography." It is the 
way to realize other things, too. Not long ago, a young 
girl told me she had heard a sermon in which the clergy- 
man declared that he should like to look back at the end 
of his life, and feel that every year he had seen something 
more of God's beautiful world ; and that accordingly her 
father had decided to take the whole family for a trip 
across the continent, to visit the Rocky Mountains, the 
Yosemite Valley, and the Yellowstone Park. Beauty is all 
around us to be sure, but the new vision does often mean 
more to us than the old one. After all, the real value of 
travelling depends on the fact that we change our point of 
view. A fine woman, who went from the East to make her 
home in St. Louis some thirty years ago, when communica- 
tion between different parts of the country was not so com- 



TRAVEL. 1 1 5 

plete as now, said, '^ I felt that this change of home tested 
me in every point. All my habits of life were changed, 
and all the people I saw had different standards from those 
at the East. I have had to decide what was essential and 
what merely superficial in both manners and creed." 

But we must have a definite point of view before it 
will be of any use to go in search of a new standpoint. 
We need to learn a great deal about the place where we 
are born before it will be much more than dissipation to 
travel. It always seems to me something of a misfor- 
tune for a little child to be dragged over Europe, though 
it is true enough that such a child does learn far more of 
places and people than he could at home ; and if the 
end of education is to speak French and German fluently, 
it is necessary that the child should spend much time in 
France and Germany when very young. 

Travel is a great quickener in education, but it is not 
the foundation of it. What does the Tower of London 
mean to one who knows nothing of English history, or 
Loch Katrine to one who reads the " Lady of the Lake " 
for the first time in connection with the guide-book? 

I am glad to notice that so many fathers and mothers 
with abundant means now seem to realize the importance 
of having their children thoroughly trained at school and 
in college before sending them abroad even to study. 
Then they are all ready to see and understand with 
enthusiasm. 



Il6 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

The mood in which one takes a journey is of impor- 
tance. It is not often in a large party that all are in the 
right mood. One is ill, and thinks only of her digestion. 
Another has been hurried abroad to break off an unfor- 
tunate love affair, etc. I know a delightful young 
girl who is putting ofT a European trip for almost a year, 
because she says solemnly that nothing shall be allowed 
to interfere with class-day at Harvard next June ! Never- 
theless, whatever the mood, new sights and sounds do 
take us so effectually out of ourselves, that even the dys- 
peptics and the unhappy usually come back from an 
extended tour with invigorated bodies and minds. 

If we had all the leisure and money we wanted, it 
certainly would not be best to travel all the time. So 
many different standpoints would only reduce our mental 
condition to that of a kaleidoscope. The ideal plan 
would, I think, be an outing of perhaps one month in 
every twelve, and a long European or South American or 
Asiatic tour about one year in five. Europe ought to be 
seen, at least for the first time, within a few years after 
leaving school, in order that the stimulus it gives us in 
the study of art and history and literature should be 
received early enough to be a distinct influence in the 
choice of our studies of a life-time. 

So few of us have either the leisure or the money to do 
as we please, however, that perhaps it is hardly best to con- 
sider any ideal which depends on these alone. We must 



TRAVEL. 117 

take our journeys whenever we can, and few of us suffer 
from a surfeit of travelling. Sometimes it is even neces- 
sary that travel should be the chief means of education. 
I know a family of girls who travelled from the time 
they were eight or ten years old till they were past the 
school age, first in America, then in Europe and the 
East. Their father's business was such that there was no 
alternative. But the father and mother were educated 
people who knew what to see ; and they had definite 
principles which made it possible to give their daughters 
fixed habits in spite of their constantly changing sur- 
roundings. So the girls are well-educated. They studied 
Roman history in Rome, and Greek history in Greece, 
and art in the galleries of Florence and Dresden and 
Paris. They read Coleridge and Shelley in the Vale of 
Chamounix, and Burns at the Bridge of Doon, and Shaks- 
peare everywhere. They acquired the modern languages 
almost without knowing it. In climbing the great pyra- 
mid, they learned more of Egypt than most of us ever 
know. They reread their Bible carefully in the East. 
Without the strong hand of the father and mother these 
girls would probably have received merely a succession 
of pleasant impressions ; but their parents taught them 
how to compare one country or people or language with 
another, and they were saved from superficiality. 

Though most of us would not be the better for such 
continual travel, we all need to change the point of 



Il8 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

view from time to time ; and few of us are so unfortunate 
that we cannot sometimes do so, if we realize that it is 
important. A lady once said to me, " When I found 
that my home in the country must be broken up and that 
I must come to the city and earn my living, I could not 
bear to think of the change. But now I rejoice in it. I 
was as narrow as a crack before I came, for everything 
went on always in the same placid routine." 

I had a friend to whose lot it fell to teach fourteen or 
fifteen years in one school. She did not however grow 
narrow or opinionated. " I get my variety," she used to 
say, with a smile, "in changing boarding- places ! " She 
was not a fussy boarder ; but some cause or other usually 
made it necessary to change once in two or three years, 
and she was rather glad of it, because this gave her a 
new aspect of life. Some people would have lamented 
their hard fate without trying to see what they could get 
from their experience. 

" To make daily a new estimate, that is greatness," 
says Emerson. If we are wise, a fresh set of circum- 
stances will help us to make a new estimate. This is 
what travel does for us if we do not travel too frequently. 

I have always liked the German plan for girls, h 
country girl, at sixteen or seventeen, is sent to live in the 
family of some friend in the city, and a city girl is sent 
in the same way into the country. These girls are to be 
taught housekeeping. They pay no board and receive no 



TRAVEL. 119 

wages, but do what they are told. They are treated as 
daughters of the family, and they learn not only house- 
keeping but new modes of life. 

And now a few words as to how we shall travel. What 
do we want to see in foreign lands? I knew a young 
lady who on her return from Europe could tell you what 
she had had to eat in every hotel. She is not necessarily 
to be condemned. If Mrs. Lincoln or Miss Corson 
travel I have no doubt they can also tell what they 
have to eat ; and they will know it so accurately that 
they will be able to show weary housekeepers all over 
the world how to vary their monotonous bill- of- fare by 
new and dainty dishes. But at the same time Mrs. Lin- 
coln at least, and Miss Corson I dare say, will be able to 
tell you about the English Cathedrals, or the palace of 
Versailles. At all events, these ladies will pay attention 
to their bill-of-fare for a purpose, and not because their 
whole mind is set on what they have to eat. 

Of course we cannot all see exactly the same sights. 
Each of us is educated to the point of seeing some 
things, but not all things. Let us, however, be sure to 
look for the best we can see. One of my friends quotes 
a friend of hers as saying that Europe seemed to him a 
network of railways, leading from one great picture- 
gallery to another. Only a cultivated person could think 
of Europe in that way. But I know a highly cultivated 
lady, and one who loves art, too, who says that the 



I20 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

absorbing interest which Europe or any other country 
has for her is in the people she sees. She loves the 
whole human family, and likes to observe how the en- 
vironment modifies the essential characteristics of each 
member of it. 

At least let us not spend our time when travelling in 
looking at things we can see equally well at home. I saw 
an English girl who was making her first trip up the Rhine 
reading a novel all the way in spite of the anxiety of her 
papa, who tried to call her attention to one point of 
beauty after another. The novel may have been a. good 
one, but that was not the place to read it. 

I once had only a few hours for a drive from Melrose 
to Abbotsford. Knowing that every inch of the ground 
must be rich in associations with Scott's novels and 
poetry, I asked the driver to point out everything of 
interest as we drove along. He was a good-natured 
fellow and showed the greatest wish to please me. Every 
minute or two he turned round with some remark for my 
instruction. "This," he would say, impressively, "is 
the new National Schoolhouse ; " " this is the Dissenting 
Chapel," and so on and so on. 

If we do not know what we want to see before we set 
out on our travels, we shall miss much of the best which 
lies in our pathway. If our previous education has not 
been broad we cannot see all we would ; but I think 
there are two things always to be looked for, and that if 



TRAVEL. 121 

we look for these, our travelling will not be in vain. One 
is beauty, — either of nature or of art ; especially of art, 
perhaps, because nature is as beautiful at home as abroad. 
The other is the present and past Hfe of other nations, 
for this teaches us our own relation to other people, and 
shows us what is essential in our own ideals. For either 
of these two objects a trip to Europe is better than a 
journey to San Francisco. We sometimes hear people 
say with a meritorious air that they should not be willing 
to go to Europe till they had seen their own country 
thoroughly. This has a conscientious sound, but is based 
I think on a misconception of the purpose of travel. It 
is true we must learn to know our own home before going 
away from it, for there our duties begin. Our home 
gives us the type of life with which all other types are to 
be compared. But when we go away from home, we 
want most to see the highest civilization and the most 
perfect art, so that England and Italy are a better stimu- 
lus for us than California and Alaska. I am glad that 
some of my friends can see Sitka as well as Rome ; but 
those of us whose leisure and money are limited enrich 
our lives more by visiting Rome than Sitka, and as to 
expense, I believe it really costs less. 

One word may not be out of place in reference to the 
temper we carry with us on our journeyings. A friend* 
who travelled through the East with a large party told 
me that sometimes the fatigue of riding on horseback or 



122 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

on a camel was so great that she thought she could not 
possibly keep up with the rest ; but that she nerved her- 
self to go on, for she always wondered whether, in case 
she should fall by the wayside, any one of that eager 
company could spare time to stop and help her. 

On the other hand, I remember an incident which 
came to my notice in Rome. Two sisters had arranged 
to go to St. Peter's for a special Easter service. They had 
always longed to hear that one service in that one spot, 
and now the opportunity of their lifetime had come. 
A lady staying at the same hotel, hearing them make 
their plan, asked to join them, fancying she too would 
like to hear the music, though it was not a matter of 
enough interest to her to have led her to make an inde- 
pendent plan. She was, moreover, rather out of health, 
so that she was very likely to break down in the midst 
of any excursion. For these reasons, the sisters were 
sorry she had proposed going with them, though they 
were too kind to refuse her request. She delayed them 
by her elaborate preparations, and I thought the elder 
sister quite justified in saying decisively to her that they 
would not wait five minutes longer. As it was they did 
not reach the church till just as the service was begin- 
ning, and at that moment, the self-invited guest was 
taken ill. The younger sister turned pale with disap- 
pointment when it proved that the guest could neither 
go on nor be left alone. *' You must stay," said the 



TRAVEL. 123 

elder sister, without an instant's hesitation. " She does 
not need us both. I will go back to the hotel with her." 
" But you will miss the service," pleaded the younger 
sister, with tears in her eyes. " Yes," said the elder, se- 
renely ; " but after all, what are we in the world for but 
to make the best of it for everybody? " So she missed 
the fulfilment of the dream of a Hfetime, but she did not 
miss something far better. You see she did not weakly 
indulge the guest when the latter's carelessness seemed 
likely to destroy the arrangement for the morning ; but 
when her own cherished plan was interrupted by the 
misfortune of another she did not waste a moment in 
unavailing regret, but promptly gave up her own wishes ; 
and I am not aware that she ever referred to the matter 
again with any irritation. 

Some of us must stay at home. We never have time 
or money or opportunity to travel. How can we get the 
best of travel without the fact ? 

By enlarging our mental horizon. The study of bot- 
any or of entomology, or still more of field geology, will 
often change the face of a familiar landscape so much 
that we shall not need to travel a thousand miles to see 
a new earth. Miss Jewett in a wholesome little book for 
girls called " Betty Leicester " tells us how a thorough 
study of the history of the town we live in will give us 
the key to the history of the whole country. If we do 



124 CHATS WITH GH-iLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

not see new nations, we can at least try to understand 
the people in our own village ; and when we do this sym- 
pathetically, we may learn as much from the Irish or 
German or French families in our neighborhood as if 
we lived a few weeks in a hotel in Dublin or Berlin or 
Paris. And if our eyes are open to beauty, there is no 
waste place so desolate that we may not see the glory of 
a fresh sunrise and a fresh sunset every day. 



XI. 

THE CULTIVATION OF A SENSE OF HUMOUR. 

'' 1\ TY dear," said a gentleman to his wife, runs an 

^^ *- old anecdote, '' you would n't see a joke if it 
were fired at you out of an ii-inch Dahlgren." " Oh, 
my dear," responded the wife, " you know they don't 
fire jokes out of guns ! " 

It does really seem like a piece of presumption to 
suppose that one may cultivate a sense of humour. We 
all know that a sense of humour is absolutely indispensa- 
ble to lubricate the wheels of life, and we feel that it is 
a special blessing of Heaven to be endowed with it ; but 
who can dare to think of cultivating it? 

Perhaps if, as Emerson suggests, we could be generous 
with our dignity as well as with our money, we might 
find our perception of humour increasing. If we were 
willing to laugh at a joke against ourselves, should we 
not establish humour on a partially ethical basis ? And 
everybody knows that ethics can be cultivated. 

Nothing so often saves us from being ridiculous as a 
sense of humour ; and on the other hand, nothing com- 
forts us so much when we are ridiculous. 



126 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

Brothers are of inestimable value in cultivating a girl's 
sense of humour. They see all her little foibles, and have 
no false sensitiveness about presenting them in the most 
picturesque and striking fashion for her contemplation. 
Most girls cry freely under this discipline, but that is not 
the way to cultivate a sense of humour. We ought to be 
grateful to our brothers for making us so ridiculous in 
private that we know better than to indulge in our sen- 
timental airs and graces in public, which would make us 
ridiculous before a hard-hearted audience. We ought 
to encourage our brothers and laugh with them, espe- 
cially when the laugh is against ourselves. The fact is, 
we always laugh kindly at ourselves. Now, if our per- 
ception of humour grows in this fashion, it is sure to re- 
main kindly when we trust ourselves to laugh at other 
people, for we know exactly how they feel, and make 
the same excuses for their absurdities which we have had 
so much practice in making for our own. 

I fancy reading the genuine humourists, like Lamb 
and Dickens, will keep us more alive to the sweetly 
amusing side of things. 

But on the whole I think our best personal contribu- 
tion to our education in humour is in making a distinct 
effort to see the funny- side of the petty annoyances which 
cause half the trouble of life. Such efforts will never be 
thrown away even if we do not succeed in finding out 
whether jokes are fired from guns or not, because we 



CULTIVATION OF A SENSE OF HUMOUR. 12/ 

shall be so much better women in consequence. I re- 
member the heroine of a novel, who when there was 
nothing but bread for dinner cut it up in half a dozen 
different ways and pretended to serve it in courses, — 
soup, fish, roast, and so on. No doubt the bread actu- 
ally digested better for the playful subterfuge. 

" All my silver was stolen last week," said a lady, 
gayly ; " but it is great fun to use pewter. You can al- 
ways pretend that the reason the dinner is poor is be- 
cause it tastes of the pewter, and not because it is burnt 
or underdone or heavy." 

It is a saving grace to be able and willing to make 
small jokes. " I love and admire Miss Seaver," said a 
young lady, ^' but I am afraid of her ; I should never 
dare to make a poor joke before her." 

I have often thought we were all too much afraid of 
laughing at poor jokes. It is true we do not wish to 
laugh at coarse ones. But we are too severe on weak 
ones. Let us honour the good intention and the gentle 
hope of pleasing which leads to their manufacture, and 
pay them the tribute of a smile. 

" I have often respected you," said one lady to an- 
other who sat at the same boarding-house table, '' when 
I have observed the persistent good nature with which 
you smile at every inane joke of those silly college boys." 

" Oh, well, you know the boys are trying to be agree- 
able," was the reply. " I can't bear to hurt their feelings." 



128 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

No one can be witty who is not born to be ; but I am 
half inclined to believe that the sense of humour belongs 
to character, and may be cultivated. It requires quick 
observation, but it also requires gentleness and kindU- 
ness and wholesomeness. Now, to be wholesomely 
alive to the amusing side of our daily irritations, we must 
be well. When we are ill or tired or worn, every annoy- 
ance annoys too much. We cannot look beneath it for 
a joke, — though I do remember several delightful inva- 
lids who made their sick-rooms sweet with laughter ; but 
they had a genius for humour, and were exceptions which 
prove the rule. Therefore as a final suggestion for the 
cultivation of a sense of humour I present this, — 

Do your best to be perfectly well at all times both in 
body and mind. 



XIL 

DULL GIRLS. 

^ I ^HERE is not so much difference as many people 
-^ think between bright girls and dull ones. 

As there are all grades of dulness I hope that girls 
who are sure they are bright will not skip this chapter, 
especially as some of my remarks will apply to those 
who are limited in time or money as well as in intellect. 
Whether we are dull or bright, we wish to make of our- 
selves all that can he made of the stuff. 

It is not best to malign the stuff given us to work up 
into a worthy fabric. Do not allow yourselves to think 
you are duller than you are. If you cannot do one 
thing, you can do another. I knew a girl who could not 
learn arithmetic, but she led her class in botany. I 
remember a boy who could not pass the college examina- 
tions in Latin, who yet became a distinguished physician. 
So, if you think you are dull, take special pains to find 
out what your gift is, and cultivate that. Some of you 
have beauty or grace or good-temper. Suppose you 
make the most of these things. Even beauty can be 

9 



130 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

used for something better than the gratification of vanity. 
For instance, a beautiful woman can often make a needed 
reform in dress attractive when a plain one would per- 
haps make it absurd. Some of you, however, may be 
plain and awkward as weii cts dull. Perhaps you may 
still have money or other opportunities which render 
your part in the world as important as that of those who 
have greater personal gifts. The first law for every dull 
girl, and indeed for all of us, is this : — 

Do not spend your time in mourning for the gifts 
which were not given to you, but in learning how to use 
those you have received. 

No doubt, however, any dull girl who takes the trouble 
to read a volume on self- culture has already the first 
essential of culture, — teachableness. ' 

I remember an amiable girl at school who worked over 
her books from morning till night, but who could never 
learn her lessons. I heard one of her most patient and 
sympathetic teachers say of her, '' I should not like to 
try so hard for nothing." Now if we hope for any result 
from our hard work, we must attempt to understand 
what we can do. 

How are you dull ? Have you a poor memory, or are 
you wanting in the power of reasoning about things which 
do not interest you? 

It is pleasant and convenient to have a good memory, 
but we need not be ashamed if it was not given to us. 



DULL GIRLS. I3I 

I hope you all remember that Columbus discovered 
America — though that has been disputed — and that 
Milton wrote " Paradise Lost." But if in spite of faith- 
ful study you cannot remember these things, you may be 
sure they are of no importance to you, however valuable 
to others. Some persons have the power of always 
making any fact they do not know seem not worth the 
knowing. " 1 take a certain pride," I once heard a young 
girl say, '' in not having read all the new books." I sup- 
pose she meant that she had more important things to 
do. Though she was not a learned young lady, she had 
a fine, forcible character, unfailing amiability, and a 
delightful sense of humour. All her time was well spent, 
and all her conversation was entertaining. Why then 
should she think it was necessary to read all the new 
books? Wisdom is always better than learning. Still, if 
a studious girl grows up without being able to remember 
who wrote ''Paradise Lost " — which we will let stand 
for all the every-day facts most people blush to be igno- 
rant of — it is certain that something is wrong in her 
education. Probably she has tried to learn who wrote 
too many books. A dull girl must not waste her energies 
on too many subjects. 

There are certain things everybody is expected to 
know, and though it is not necessary you should know 
them all — and indeed most bright women do not know 
them all — yet it would be a good plan to spend your 



132 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

Strength over these rather than over other things. I am 
tempted to make out a httle course of study for girls 
who know they are dull, and perhaps it will do for those 
who are hampered in other ways. 

I. You want to read easily and intelligently ; and — 

II. To write plainly and neatly. 

II L I have a word to say about spelhng. I once 
knew an idiot girl who could spell such words as Cincin- 
nati and Himalaya backwards as well as forwards. On 
the other hand, one of the most cultivated women I have 
ever seen tells me that when she was a girl her father 
made her a present of two dictionaries, one to be kept 
upstairs and the other downstairs. " For, my dear,'"' he 
said, " I do not wish to see so much bad spelling in your 
letters, and now you will have no excuse for not looking 
up every word you are in doubt about." In the polite 
world, an ill-spelled letter does carry disgrace with it ; 
but if you are not a natural speller, I think it might be 
as well to buy the dictionaries. 

IV. Mathematics. Every girl needs a thorough knowl- 
edge of mental arithmetic, as set forth in such a little 
book as that of Warren Colburn, — the power to add, 
subtract, multiply, and divide large numbers easily, and to 
be accurate in keeping accounts. Most school-girls study 
mathematics for eight or nine years, and there are few 
who could not master the subjects I have mentioned if 
they would give all the time they have to spend on mathe- 



DULL GIRLS. 1 33 

matics to this rudimentary work. Most girls could do 
more ; and I, at least, rejoice whenever one can go on to 
higher and higher branches till, like Philippa Fawcett, 
she carries all the prizes away from the University stu- 
dents. The important point, however, is to do the 
essential work first, and then we need not be troubled if 
there is no time left for anything more. 

V. Languages. The very dullest girls have a right 
to give all their energies to learning to speak and write 
English clearly and correctly. It is also worth while to 
try to use the exact word to express the thought. The 
grade just above this may study one other language. 
French will probably be most available, as it is not hard 
to translate. A dull girl who has special advantages may 
perhaps learn still other languages, but it is not generally 
best. 

It is the privilege of dull girls and busy girls and deli- 
cate girls to read translations without compunction. 
They are not obliged to feel that they might do some- 
thing better. Of course they can never appreciate the 
Iliad as well as if they understood Greek, but they 
can get a great deal that is of value from a translation. 
Dorothea, in " Middlemarch," is grieved because learned 
men get ^' so worn out on the way to great thoughts that 
they have no power left to enjoy them." A dull girl has 
a right to begin with great thoughts. 

VI. Science. A dull girl need not try to learn much 



134 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

of more than one science. She may choose the one she 
likes best and begin with the simplest book. For in- 
stance if she studies botany, Gray's Httle volume "■ How 
Plants Grow " will give her a delightful introduction to 
the subject without obliging her to learn many hard 
words. Now, a clever girl must analyze her flowers by 
the most complete manual she can buy, but a dull girl 
has a perfect right to the easiest. 

VIL History. Every girl who lives in the United 
States must know something of its histoij. A dull girl 
need not be ambitious to read through extensive trea- 
tises. Suppose she takes a very little book and an en- 
tertaining one, — such an one as that by T. W. Higginson, 
for instance, — and learns it thoroughly. If she cannot do 
that m one year, perhaps she can in two years ; or if not 
in two, then in three. By that time she will have a 
foundation for reading United States history, and I should 
not be surprised if all through her life she should read 
entertaining books of history with real zest. I do not say 
that even then her education in history will not be super- 
ficial, and yet I think it quite probable that it will go as 
deep as that of the majority of her bright acquaintances. 

Some simple history of England, Greece, Rome, 
France, and Germany must follow. But a dull girl can 
allow herself three or four years for each country. It is 
not necessary that she should get her whole education in 
school. Dickens's "Child's History of England" is a 



DULL GIRLS. 1 35 

good illustration of the kind of book I mean. That 
gives the currently received facts of English history in a 
very agreeable form. No doubt an accurate scholar 
finds many mistakes in it ; but it certainly will do more 
than many a greater work to give a dull girl a prelimi- 
nary knowledge of England. 

A dull girl must have entertaining books to read. By 
virtue of her dulness she is allowed to study only the 
most interesting things in the most interesting way. A 
dull mind cannot digest a dull book, no matter how ad- 
mirable it is. So, in spite of the inaccuracies which are 
charged to the series of fascinating little biographies by 
the Abbotts, I think they are still well worth reading by 
any dull girl (as well as by a good many people who are 
not dull) who wants to have a general knowledge of his- 
tory. Miss Strickland's " Queens of England " is another 
book which will hold the attention like a novel. 

In these days of historical research, however, more 
recent books are likely to be more correct. And some 
late biographies are entertaining. Perhaps, for instance, 
some of those included by Macmillan & Co. in their 
" EngUsh Men of Action " series, by Dodd, Mead, & Co. 
in their " Makers of America " series, and by Houghton, 
Mifflin, & Co. in their " American Statesmen " series may 
not be beyond the powers of dull girls. Very likely, 
however, a dull girl can learn history better from stories. 
Many a girl knows the facts of the Reformation from Mrs, 



136 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

Charles's charming ^' Schonberg-Cotta Family," who 
would otherwise be quite ignorant of that epoch. 

Of course a bright girl must have accurate knowledge, 
but a dull girl has not always the choice. She can only 
assimilate the kind of knowledge that belongs to her. 

VIIL Geography. Other countries and people form 
so important a subject of conversation in every civilized 
community that a girl ignorant of geography is oftener 
put to shame than if she were deficient in science or 
arithmetic. Moreover there are so many delightful vol- 
umes of travel that nothing is easier than to learn some- 
thing of geography by reading them, especially if one has 
the perseverance to look out the places mentioned on a 
map. This seems to me a peculiarly suitable kind of read- 
ing for dull girls. Though they are to be excused from 
reading dull books, they want to read useful books ; and 
though it is not their duty to study works beyond their 
capacity, that does not mean that they are to be excused 
from painstaking work within their power, such as the 
drudgery of looking out places on a map. 

IX. Literature. The dullest girl can afford to neglect 
language, science, history, and even mental arithmetic 
better than she can afford to neglect literature. Every 
one ought to read a few of the best books. Every one 
luho speaks the English language nmst know so7ne thing 
of Shakspeai'e. I have often seen dull girls glow with 
enthusiasm over the " Merchant of Venice," which is one 



DULL GIRLS. 1 3/ 

of the best plays to begin with. A girl who has read a 
dozen plays thoroughly has a very good literary founda- 
tion. These should not be first read — at all events by 
a stupid girl — in the order of their greatness, and yet 
her strength should be given as far as possible to the 
greater plays. I will here suggest a good order for 
reading a dozen of the best ones : — 

I. The Merchant of Venice. 2. Julius Caesar. 3. 
Macbeth. 4. A Midsummer Night's Dream. 5. Henry 
VIII. 6. King Lear. 7. The Tempest. 8. King John. 
9. Romeo and Juliet. 10. As You Like It. 11. 
Hamlet. 12. Othello. 

You can well afford to be half a dozen years in read- 
ing these few plays. Only when you do read them, be 
sure to give your freshest and best attention to them. 
AVhen you are familiar with them all, you will probably 
want to add to the list Henry IV. and Henry V., Winter's 
Tale, Cymbeline, and Richard III. ; and very likely you 
will go on adding to the list all your life. But remem- 
ber that it is not essential that you should read all 
Shakspeare's plays, and that you should never expect 
to exhaust all the meaning of a single one. The im- 
portant point is that you should have the elevation of 
mind which comes from association with such a poet as 
Shakspeare. 

Other poets you may read as you have time and in- 
clination ; but I hope Milton will be one of them. At 



138 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

all events, let a large part of the energy you give to real 
study be given to the best poetry. 

Much of your other reading will inevitably be novels. 
If you are very dull, even novels that are valuable may be 
hard reading. Scott is considered solid food by some 
girls. If that is the case with you, do not be ashamed 
to confess it. If Scott requires study, he is also worth 
study, and so are all the great novelists. For recrea- 
tion, you can always read some of the simple and sweet 
story-tellers. You need not even despise children's 
books. Many of us middle-aged people of average 
brightness find pleasure and rest and even instruction in 
good children's books. You cannot afford to spend any 
time over poor books ; but if you steadily read good and 
interesting novels as well as good and interesting chil- 
dren's books, you will both enjoy your reading, and 
you will in the end have a kind of education which 
though not great will rest on solid foundations, — for every 
good novel and every worthy book for children depends 
for its value on the understanding the writer has of life 
and character, while an entertaining book is usually full 
of allusions to current events and manners which it is 
useful and agreeable for any girl to know about. 

X. Music, Drawing, and Other Arts. Arts Hke danc- 
ing, horseback- riding, etc., require chiefly bodily training, 
and need not be considered here, though they are of 
great value, and luckily many a girl who is dull at her 



DULL GIRLS. 1 39 

books excels without difficulty in these beautiful accom- 
plishments. And often such a girl has some real artistic 
gift. When she is so happy, she has a right to devote- 
herself to thatv But no one art is essential, and if a girl 
has no gift she has no corresponding duty. It is so 
important, however, that every one should have some 
artistic training, that even a dull girl must not be 
an exception. She should try to cultivate any artistic 
taste of which she has even a germ. She may not 
have a good voice, but perhaps she can learn to sing 
hymns. She may never be able to draw a tree, but 
in trying to learn she may become able to appreciate 
Corot's trees. 

Indeed I think the attempt to make the most of the 
smallest artistic gift is more necessary for dull girls than 
bright ones ; for it is a theory of mine — borne out I 
believe by facts — that the mission of dull girls who have 
no special mission in the world is to fill all the waste 
places with beauty. A girl who cannot master botany, 
for instance, has all the more time to arrange flowers and 
cultivate a beautiful garden. How many dull women 
make exquisite homes because they can give their whole 
heart to that work ! They know they can never do any- 
thing great, and so they lavish care and thought on their 
own little corner. If they are so unfortunate as to feel 
that their little corner is the whole world, their devotion 
to small things belittles them ; but if they simply look at 



I40 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

it as the centre of the work they can do, it will become a 
haven of beauty and repose for all who pass by. 

I am not an advocate of fancy-work. A life given to 
it is usually very poor. Yet fancy-work has its place. I 
know a young lady whose delicate health has prevented 
her from studying as her brothers and sisters have done. 
The only work she could do has been to beautify her 
own corner of the world. This she has done. She has her- 
self a fragile loveliness which is heightened by the dainty 
though simple dresses which she has time to plan. She is 
like a beautiful old painting as she sits by the window with* 
her soft wools and rich embroidery silks. She does not 
multiply tidies in a room till they bewilder the visitor, but 
the necessary table-covers and piano-covers and napkins 
and footstools have all intrinsic beauty from the patient, 
affectionate work of her skilful fingers. If her heart were 
all given to her fancy-work she would be sure to overload 
her rooms ; but though she scarcely moves from her cen- 
tre, she has an outlook on the world. She does a part of 
the daily household work. All the beautiful cooking for 
the family is hers. She puts the finishing touches to the 
attrac'dve table. There is large hospitality in the family, 
and she is always sweet and fresh and ready to entertain 
visitors. She takes them into the garden and gathers 
flowers for them, or makes tea for them in the summer- 
house. She is not a student, but she reads the best 
novels. She is not a remarkable musician ; but she prac- 



DULL GIRLS. 14I 

tises some good music every day, and is always ready to 
play an acceptable second in a duet or an accompani- 
ment to a song. Best of all, she has the unfailing sweet- 
ness of temper which smoothes the way of the whole 
household. I did not say that she was a dull girl, but 
she might be dull and still do all these good deeds. 

A dull woman, working in her own corner, who pauses 
every day to get the "lift " given her by Shakspeare, who 
goes out of her corner every day to be refreshed by the 
splendour of nature, and to enter into the life and 
thought of people beyond her own family circle, and 
who welcomes her friends hospitably to the one little 
nook it is her province to make lovely, cannot be petty 
though she works with small tools. 

Some one is sure to say that the minimum of education 
which I have set down for the dullest women does after 
all involve more than many a bright woman ever attains. 
It is so. Many a bright woman who reads incessantly 
does not read Shakspeare, and girls who are struggling 
with algebra often fail hopelessly in keeping their ac- 
counts. I have taken for granted that our dull girls are 
willing to study, and that they have the opportunity to do 
so. In that case they can accomplish, more than the 
bright ones often do, if they are only determined to study 
essentials and are not allured by the wish to make a show. 
And they have one special advantage. If they recognize 



142 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

their dulness, they are safe from self-conceit, and that is 
a pitfall which has destroyed many a bright girl who 
would otherwise have been capable of an earnest and 
useful life. 

Character is at the foundation of all success. A dull 
girl with character accomplishes, not the same thing, 
to be sure, but something better than the bright girl 
whose nature is trivial. 

Not one of us is shut out from the best. 



XIII. 

CLEVER GIRLS. 

THERE are several dangers which beset clever girls. 
They may become self-conceited, and they may 
not realize their responsibilities. The same corrective 
may be supplied in both these cases. If you are clever, 
study hard subjects. 

Many a brilliant girl goes on learning the rudiments 
of language after language, or accumulating fact after 
fact of history, without any definite object, simply from 
the unconscious vanity which makes her wish to outshine 
others. Yet most people can learn the rudiments of 
everything. Real power of mind is shown in going be- 
yond this point. If you hope to do this however, you 
must first master the rudiments perfectly. A one-storey 
building may be useful and picturesque though its foun- 
dation is slight, but it never will do to attempt to rear a 
structure of twelve storeys on an insecure foundation. If 
you require absolute thoroughness and accuracy of your- 
self from the beginning of your education, you will find 
the task hard enough to keep you from self-conceit, for 



144 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

you will not be able to learn lessons in half an hour on 
which other girls must spend an hour, and you will not 
take pride in studying a dozen branches at a time when 
your teachers advise you to be content with three or 
four. And then you will form habits which will make it 
possible for you to do some solid work later in life. I 
should be glad to have you know twenty languages if you 
like, or to have all the facts of history at your instant 
command ; but a clever girl ought to feel that she has a 
special task set her, that she must make the most that 
can be made of the stuff. The world needs all our gifts. 
A pretty girl, chattering French and Italian at a garden 
party, may be quite as attractive and useful as an intel- 
lectual girl poring over the philosophy of Hegel ; yet the 
girl who is capable of reading Hegel should not fail to 
do so, unless she is sure she can do something more im- 
portant. Most girls cannot comprehend much of specu- 
lative philosophy. It is a study for mature minds, and 
those of unusual strength. But a few girls can make a 
beginning in this direction even in their school days. 
Others can set themselves the task for middle life. It is 
not likely that any of my readers will ever add original 
contributions to the subject ; but the enlargement of their 
own minds will — if they are modest and generous — do 
something for the enlightenment of the world. 

At all events, let the clever girls read Plato, and not 
only read, but study him, beginning with the Apology of 



CLEVER GIRLS. 145 

Socrates, which ought to form a part of the education of 
everybody, even I think of dull girls. 

Logic is a branch of philosophy which a clever girl 
cannot afford to neglect if she wishes to train her mind 
for its highest uses. 

Many clever girls have a love of literature, and would 
like to read everything that has ever been written from 
the cuneiform inscriptions to the last of Swinburne's 
poems. I admit a kindred weakness. But would it not 
be better for us all to make haste slowly, and read with 
more thought than we can give when we are in a hurry? 

There are two great poems which most school-girls 
think beyond them, Dante's "Divine Comedy," and 
Goethe's " Faust." On the other hand, there are those 
who suppose they understand them at first reading. 
Girls who are omnivorous readers will do well to begin 
the study of these poems very early, and come back to 
them from year to year all their lives. 

Browning is a poet that a clever girl may not neglect. 
She must not read him because it is the fashion, but be- 
cause the message he brings to the world is so great. 
She may have to learn every poem by heart before she 
begins to see .any meaning in it, but the meaning is there. 

It would be idle for me to try to catalogue all the 
kinds of work a clever girl may do ; but it is necessary 
that she should determine to do real work, and not be 
content with simply acquiring, — that is to say, she must 

10 



146 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

be willing to think. Her own tastes and abilities will de- 
cide her special line of study. And if possible, she 
ought to do some original work. There is however 
one branch of investigation I wish to call particular 
attention to, for it is of the deepest interest to women, 
and it is so difficult that only a clever woman can hope 
to make much headway in it. Moreover it would fur- 
nish a safeguard against a third danger which threatens 
gifted girls, — the danger that they will allow themselves 
to be so absorbed in study as to forget their fellow- 
creatures. This study is social science. 

It is said that whereas the preponderance of elective 
study a few years ago at Harvard was in the direction of 
literature, it is now in that of political economy. Social 
science and political economy are two branches of the 
same subject, both of which are necessary ; but just at 
present women are and possibly need to be most occu- 
pied with social science. The complexity of modern life 
makes it often essential that we should understand the 
working of far-reaching laws of economics in order that 
some of our very commonplace acts may do good and 
not harm. You remember how Dorothea in ^' Middle- 
march " wished to learn political economy so that she 
might work for the poor without injuring them. A great 
many American girls sympathize with her. It is bitter 
to them to- refuse a beggar on the street because the Asso- 
ciated Charities have warned them it is wrong to give 



CLEVER GIRLS. 147 

ahns in that way. They are balked at every turn by 
some scientific friend who tells them they will undermine 
the characters of the poor and plunge the nation into dis- 
tress if they follow the generous promptings of their own 
hearts. They feel like Mr. Howells's " Annie Kilburn," 
after she had tried in vain to use her money for the good 
of others, that it is mere impertinence to ask a tramp to 
saw wood before giving him a breakfast, since they have 
their own dinner of many courses without lifting a finger 
themselves. 

I will risk attempting to define the spheres of political 
economy and social science. Even if I misunderstand 
the terms, it will not be of much consequence, for I shall 
at least make clear, I hope, just what it is that girls need 
to know in this department of study. Political economy 
seeks to benefit the whole civilized world by laying down 
the laws which govern the production and distribution of 
material wealth. Individuals must often be sacrificed to 
the general good. Social science, on the other hand, 
seeks to promote the true welfare of every individual 
both materially and spiritually ; but in its choice between 
means in themselves equally worthy, it must use those 
which by helping one individual at a given time will not 
injure many more for a longer time. Such a problem 
was not so hard a few generations ago, when each little 
community was sufficient to itself, and everybody knew 
the needs and capacities of any one he was called upon 



148 CHATS WITH GH^LS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

to help. But now when the price of grain in Chicago 
may cause a child to starve to death in London, the 
problem is one of the gravest difficulty. The most en- 
lightened political economy is not yet competent to solve 
it, but it is very important that all of us should act up to 
the highest positive knowledge yet gained by the most 
powerful minds. And so it seems to me necessary that 
even girls should begin to study political economy. 
Nevertheless there is such a strong tendency among men 
to forget individuals while theorizing about the masses, 
that it is even more important for women to keep the 
balance by laying great stress on social science. If we 
are ready to help individuals whenever and wherever we 
can, if we are ready to enter into the lives of others and 
always give the best we have to give whether of money 
or time or thought or character, it will certainly be better 
than if we began to study at the other end, and never 
went far enough to get at the individual at all. There 
are those who think that loving-kindness will do every- 
thing, and it is indeed one of the most potent forces in 
the universe. Still, if every man and woman in Boston 
were alive with love to all his fellow-creatures and some 
railroad accident should cut off the city's supply of fresh 
milk for a few days, many little children would die. Lov- 
ing-kindness is indeed far better than food, but what sort 
of loving-kindness would that be which neglected to find 
out the laws necessary to supply the babies with milk ? 



CLEVER GIRLS. I49 

Girls then are to learn social science by working for 
individuals ; but in order that they may work to the best 
purpose, they need to learn something of political 
economy. 

This is a very difficult study, requiring a strong mind, 
trained judgment, and perseverance. A great many men 
and women cannot make anything out of it ; and indeed 
new problems are arising constantly in these days which 
show that the questions we had supposed answered once 
for all were answered without full data, so that it is any- 
thing but an exact science. Why should a girl lose her- 
self in its intricacies? I am forced to admit that it is 
beyond the range of most girls. A shght study of it is 
almost worse than none. It certainly is so unless the 
student has the rare balance of character which allows 
her to realize that she must see a scientific fact or theory 
on all sides and test it in all hghts before she has a right 
to be sure of it. Only a girl who is intellectually modest 
should begin the study, and then only if she is willing to 
go on with it all her life. 

Nevertheless, as I think there is no inherent reason 
why girls may not do at least as much as their brothers 
in this direction, — for boys, too, are stupid and one- 
sided, — and as women sorely need this knowledge for 
much of the practical work which is coming so largely 
into their hands, I do wish that every girl who knows 
that she has a strong brain, and who feels that she has 



150 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

determination enough to carry on hard work for many 
years, would make a systematic study of poUtical economy. 
I say systematic, because to study one question — the 
land question, for instance — by itself would be like 
trying to solve a problem in the sixth book of Euclid 
when you knew nothing about the first book. But while 
in geometr)^ one step leads irresistibly to another, no 
one yet has produced a scheme of political economy 
which has no flaw in its reasoning. So, while you may 
go on in considerable security in geometry if you remem- 
ber your results even if you forget your methods of prov- 
ing each theorem, it is not so in political economy. A 
fallacy which you could not see at the beginning may 
bring you into fatal error at the end if you have not so 
made every step of the reasoning your own that you can 
recall it with ease at any moment. 

Many years ago John Stuart Mill wrote what is con- 
sidered by most thinkers the standard treatise on politi- 
cal economy. He had a powerful and logical mind ; and 
gathered up the result of previous thinkers, and not only 
presented them clearly, but added much valuable matter 
of his own. No one of equal ability has written on the 
subject since ; so his work is still the treatise to be com- 
pletely mastered first by one who wishes to know any- 
thing in earnest of political economy. 

But since his day, advancing civilization has changed 
the aspect of the world. He scarcely alludes to many 



CLEVER GIRLS. 151 

of the burning questions of the present time. Moreover, 
thoughtful critics have been able to show that there are 
joints even in his shining armour ; so that if you were to 
conquer Mill and stop there, you would hardly be any 
better fitted for your own personal duties than you are 
now. 

After you have mastered Mill however, you will be in 
a condition to attack any one of the current questions 
which particularly interests you. Every few years some 
new book appears which attracts wide attention, — such 
a book for instance as Henry George's " Progress and 
Poverty " or Bellamy's " Looking Backward." Now, 
whether the theories of these writers are correct or not, 
they have to be fully understood by any of us who hope 
to solve the problems of the day, because their influence 
is so great. Unless we ourselves understand them, we 
cannot deal intelligently with the mass of men and 
women who are their eager champions. So even if such 
books prove to be short-lived by reason of their errors, 
the student of political economy must give them serious 
attention -, and after reading the books themselves, it is 
necessary to read such answers to them as are made by 
men of integrity and power. It may be that we have 
been carried away by brilliant reasoning whose fallacies 
were too subtile for us to discover. On the other hand 
it may be the answers will seem less convincing than the 
original argument. Or it may be they will simply clear 



152 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

away the fallacies, and leave the main argument irresisti- 
ble. It will never do to accept any new theory without 
this conscientious study, and it will seldom do to accept 
any without qualifications. 

It will be thought I have made a very short list of 
books on these subjects. The actual list of those worth 
reading is very long, but all I can hope to do is to start 
a few earnest intellectual girls in a pathway which need 
not be retraced. I think a great deal of this solid read- 
ing is necessary as a foundation before a woman — or a 
man either for that matter — can be prepared to consi- 
der the economic questions discussed in the newspapers 
at all. 

Most of us would be much helped in such study, if we 
could discuss every question fully with other intelligent 
people before we made up our minds on it. In many 
places there are political clubs for this purpose. I know 
a clear-minded woman who started one in a small coun- 
try town, and it became a centre of practical thought 
and action for all the sensible and honest people of the 
region. But alas ! many of us — and here I must con- 
fess I am afraid women fail oftener than men — make up 
our minds on a question with very little thought or study, 
and then get angry with everybody who does not agree 
with us. 



XIV. 

MORAL CULTURE. 

'' I ^HOUGH most of the previous chapters have been 
-^ given to the culture of the mind, I hope I have 
made it clear that this can have no real value unless 
every intellectual question is decided by moral standards. 
Indeed it is difficult to speak of moral training by itself. 
We are to do right ; but a very large number of the par- 
ticular duties we ought to do depend on our mental de- 
velopment, and others still on our physical condition, — 
for which we are often responsible. We show our moral 
character through our bodies and our minds much 
oftener than we sometimes like to admit. 

There are broad moral principles, however, which 
we must first recognize and then act upon, though we 
may seem to apply them to things as trivial as ventilating 
a room or learning an arithmetic lesson. 

The three essential qualities of a moral character are 
right feeling, right thinking, and right doing. I am 
rather inclined to think that we have more power to do 
right than to feel aright or even to think aright, and 



154 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

so I shall begin this part of my subject by a chapter on 
the culture of the will. 

Right thinking involves good judgment. This is 
largely an intellectual quality ; but the resolution to take 
the pains needed to form a good judgment belongs to 
the moral nature, and it is by constantly using our will 
in carrying out those plans which our judgment approves 
that we gain the poise of mind which helps us to think 
truly on all matters. For this reason, I shall next give a 
chapter to culture in justice, which I believe involves 
culture in truthfulness. 

It is harder to reach the feelings than either the deeds 
or the thoughts. I mean it is a harder task to change 
our own feelings than either to do our duty or to decide 
correctly what we ought to do. Of course, if we are ex- 
citable, we may be very easily touched by the words or 
acts of other people, and in that case we ought to be 
very careful to place ourselves always among those influ- 
ences which rouse our best feelings. But self-culture 
includes the attempt to cultivate our best feelings our- 
selves. In the broad sense " Love is the fulfilling of the 
law," so that the little I feel able to say on this branch 
of my subject I shall say in a chapter on the cultivation 
of a spirit of love. 

I do not feel quite sure that all girls — even all good 
girls — are entirely convinced that goodness is the one 



MORAL CULTURE. 1 55 

thing needful. Alma, the gifted young artist in "A 
Hazard of New Fortunes," exclaims impatiently in refer- 
ence to the quotation " Be good, sweet child, and let 
who will be clever," '* Just as if any girl would care about 
being good who had the least chance of being clever ! " 
That is rather an extreme statement. Alma was on the 
whole a very good girl herself. I think it is rarely the case 
that a clever girl goes far wrong, — at least according 
to the common standards. And yet x\lma did speak out 
the feeling of a great many bright girls who have a vague 
idea that in some way — just how they would find it hard 
to tell — their brightness is more than an equivalent for 
goodness. They have unconsciously the same kind of 
foolish vanity which makes so many handsome girls intol- 
erable because they assume that their beauty is a suffi- 
cient contribution to the world from them, and that they 
need add to it neither sweetness nor brightness. But if 
a clever girl is not better than a stupid one, she is neces- 
sarily worse through the waste of better powers. 

The founders of the first boarding-schools for girls 
which were established in Massachusetts, such as that of 
Miss Grant and Miss Lyon at Ipswich, the Wheaton 
Seminary at Norton, Abbot Academy at Andover, Brad- 
ford Academy, Mount Holyoke Seminary, and others, rec- 
ognized the fact that the moral nature is higher than the 
intellectual, though they were ready to make great sacri- 
fices for a better mental development. Such schools, 



T56 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

and those upon the same plan that sprang up all over 
the country, have always stood firm for that idea, and 
have scorned any system of training in which character 
and intellect did not go hand in hand. It must be 
admitted that they have sometimes held a narrow creed, 
and have made mistakes of judgment ; but no creed is 
so stultifying as worldliness, and these schools have always 
been essentially Christian. 

In some of these schools it used to be the custom, and 
perhaps it is so still, to send home reports not only of 
the scholarship of the pupils but of their conduct, 
promptness, care of health, care of wardrobe, care of 
room, and the cash account. Some of the clever girls 
were impatient of such oversight. If their reports 
for scholarship stood high they troubled themselves 
very little about holes in their stockings or dust in 
the corners of their rooms. I remember once hearing 
a group of girls discussing the matter. They were 
all bright and neat and pretty and well-intentioned 
girls ; but some of them thought no harm was done if 
they saved their stockings for their mothers to mend, 
or if they ate candy without permission, or if they whis- 
pered to their room-mates after the bell for the Hghts to 
be put out at night. One of them, however, was of a 
different mind. She was the most beautiful girl of the 
group. I see her now as she stood among them, stately 
and fair, with her golden hair and deep blue eyes. She 



MORAL CULTURE. 1 57 

was also one of the most intellectual of the girls, and 
moreover so full of life and spirit and fun that she was 
popular even with those of her schoolmates who could 
not endure " a dig." And this is what she said : '' I should 
hate to fail in a lesson ; but I should feel a great deal 
worse not to have a perfect mark for care of room, or 
wardrobe, or for any of those things." 

"How can you say so, Mary?" cried a lively girl. 
"When the teachers are so fussy, too ! " 

"Why, don't you see," returned Mary, very earnestly, 
" I might try my best, and still fail in a lesson. I might 
not understand it, or I might forget. When my father 
and mother see my report, of course they think of that. 
But I can be prompt, and I can keep all the rules ; so if I 
have low marks in my general report, they will know that 
I am to blame. I could not bear to send home such a 
report as that." 

I think she was right. Perhaps the rules were too 
stringent, and their multiplicity may sometimes have 
made the girls nervous ; though for that matter, if all the 
girls had had Mary's spirit, the rules could soon have 
been modified. The point, however, is this : we ought 
to care more for the kind of excellence which depends 
on our own will than for that which depends on our nat- 
ural gifts, for it is the will which gives a moral quality to 
an act. 

This is the spirit which I should like to see animating 



158 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

not only every girl, but every man, woman, and child. It 
is akin to religion. Perhaps it is the strongest element 
in religion, for it is the " consecration of ourselves to the 
best." The feehng of dependence on the mighty Love 
which rules the universe, which is the blossom of the 
religious life, is not always within our power, and so not 
essential, though so precious ; but the determination to 
hold fast to the highest we know may always be ours, and 
with this strong root in the soil, the plant cannot fail at 
last to blossom. 

Universal Love does enfold us even when we are un- 
conscious of it ; and so, if we hold ourselves ready to 
receive it, the blessing always descends upon us at last. 
The opening of our hearts and minds to the best is es- 
sentially prayer, the kind of prayer which should be 
" without ceasing," and which is possible in the midst 
even of an anxious crowd. But it is so much easier to 
recover a high tone of mind when we are quiet and 
alone that those of us who are in earnest in our wish 
for the best life will not lightly suffer the days to go by 

without — 

" Some part 
Free for a Sabbath of the heart." 

It is not always easy to find time to be alone. In the 
old-fashioned boarding-schools I have spoken of, it was 
the first thing arranged for on the programme of daily 
occupations, and necessarily so ; for where several girls 



MORAL CULTURE. 159 

occupied the same room, it would have been almost im- 
possible for any of them to depend upon a moment 
alone if there had not been some definite portion set 
apart for "silent time." 

A woman who orders her own household ought to re- 
member this great need, and try to make room for it. 
But some of us do not have the ordering of our days. 
We are claimed by imperative duties from the moment 
we wake till we sink exhausted at night. The only quiet 
possible to us is inward quiet — and for that we must 
strive hard. 

In Charlotte Bronte's story " Villette," little Paulina 
de Bassompierre is represented as speaking with beauti- 
ful simplicity of a letter she had received from her lover 
directly after breakfast. She held it in her hand a few 
moments, thinking it too soon " to drink that draught," 
for "the sparkle in the cup was too beautiful." She 
says : — 

" Then I remembered all at once that I had not said my 
prayers that morning. Having heard Papa go down to 
breakfast a little earlier than usual, I had been afraid of keep- 
ing him waiting, and had hastened to join him as soon as 
dressed, thinking no harm to put oft my prayers till after- 
wards. Some people would say I ought to have served God 
first and then man ; but I don't think Heaven could be jeal- 
ous of anything I might do for Papa. I believe I am super 
stitious. A voice seemed now to say that another feeling 
than filial affection was in question ; to urge me to pray be- 
fore I dared to read what I so longed to read ; to deny myself 



l60 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

yet a moment, and remember first a great duty. I put the 
letter down and said my prayers, adding at the end a strong 
entreaty that whatever happened, I might not be tempted or 
led to cause Papa any sorrow, and might never, in caring for 
others, neglect him." 

" Saying prayers " is not always a duty; but w^ho can 
read Paulina's simple words without feeling that she made 
the true choice between active goodness and quiet com- 
munion with the Spirit of Goodness? 



XV. 

THE TRAINING OF THE WILL. 

T DO not feel that it is my place to discuss the knotty 
problem of the freedom of the will. Whether we 
are free or not, it is always wholesome to act as if we 
were free. This is the doctrine not only of so great a 
philosopher as Kant, but the principle of every man or 
woman who leads a life of moral growth. 

" When duty whispers low, ' Thou must!' 
The youth replies, ' I can.' " 

Every time we act upon this principle, we make it 
easier to act upon it again. In this way, we become 
constantly freer and freer to do right ! We cannot al- 
ways control our feelings or our thoughts or our judg- 
ments. We cannot even always do what we know we 
ought to do and what we try to do, for we have not al- 
ways moral force enough to carry out our attempt. But 
if we keep on trying, we shall have more and more suc- 
cess. In striving for a moral victory, it is not possible 
to lose the battle. The battle is the victory. 

Many years ago Dr. Andrew Peabody preached a 
baccalaureate sermon at Harvard College on this subject. 



II 



l62 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

I did not hear the sermon, and do not even know his 
text, but I know his argument in the most practical way, 
through hearing it quoted again and again by a young 
girl on whom it made a great impression. He said that 
we often excused ourselves for wrong deeds and words 
on the ground that temptation came to us suddenly, and 
that we acted involuntarily before we had time to rally 
our forces. He admitted this as a valid excuse for those 
particular acts and words ; but he said that the true re- 
sponsibility lay further back, — that temptations were 
continually coming to us when we did have time to think ; 
that if we yielded to these, we not only did wrong at 
once, but that we weakened the moral fibre so that we 
did wrong in other instances when we had no time to 
think ; and that if we resisted the temptation when we 
could resist, we were forming a habit of feeling and action 
which would by and by help us to do right unhesitatingly 
and spontaneously. 

So Emerson says, " The unremitting retention of 
simple and high sentiments in obscure duties is harden- 
ing the character to that temper which will work with 
honour if need be in the tumult or on the scaffold." 
And Carlyle quotes Goethe : " Do the duty which lies 
nearest thee : thy second duty will already have become 
clearer." And so on and so on. But it is life we need 
more than quotations. There is not much to be said, 
after all, and yet I wish I knew how to say something so 



THE TRAINING OF THE WILL. 163 

strong that it would cling to every girl's memory and in- 
sist on being obeyed. 

We do not wish to be wilful ; we wish to have a will 
so firm that it can never yield to wrong, but so firm that 
it yields instandy to right, — a perfectly disciplined will. 
It is the untrained horse that balks or that shies ; but the 
thorough-bred horse stands still the moment his master 
speaks, and he turns to the right or left at the lightest 
touch of the bridle. 

Obstinacy is the determination to have our own way ; 
firmness is the determination to take the right way. 
One who has a firm will purposely gives up non-essentials 
in order to have more power in essentials. 

In " Framley Parsonage " Trollope describes an English 
clergyman as making a stand against the great lady of 
the parish in a trifling matter. His wife begs him to 
yield, for she says if he gains his own way in this, he 
will hardly have the courage to make another stand at 
once, and yet that he is sure to have occasion to do so 
soon, and very likely in the next case a principle will be 
involved. But the clergyman persists, and the result is 
just what his wife predicted. Indeed, he is almost forced 
to give up a principle in the end because he would not 
give up a fancy in the beginning. His will was weak 
all through, as weak when he was headstrong and insisted 
on having his own way as when he was forced to give 
it up. 



1 64 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

There is a kind of strong will which spends itself in 

controlling others. " Is Mr. king of this town? " 

asked a young man not long ago. Such a will may be 
cultivated, but it ends in moral degradation. In some 
cases, indeed, it is our duty to control others. A mother 
must control a child, and a teacher her scholars. There 
are upright men of sound intellect who know they ought 
to make their influence felt in public affairs. However 
weak and incapable we may feel, we have no right to 
shirk any responsibility which plainly belongs to us. We 
must try to do our part even if we end in failure. 

But most girls at least do not have such a task set 
them. Their task is to train their own will sometimes 
to yield to others cheerfully, sometimes to do a difficult 
act. 

One of my friends was once very ill for many weeks. 
At last she began to improve, and one day the doctors 
said she ought to get up. She was a woman of great 
energy and courage, but she thought it would be impos- 
sible to obey them. She was so weak and sore and 
racked with pain that she could only turn her face away 
to hide the tears. But the doctors urged the point ; 
they told her that the disease had been checked, though 
she could not realize it, and that the weakness and suf- 
fering she now felt were due to the nervous strain. She 
understood them and believed them, but she still felt 



THE TRAINING OF THE WILL. 1 65 

that she could not move. She asked them to lift her up 
and make her walk. They told her that would do no 
good, for the time had come when she must use her 
will or she would be bedridden for Ufe. And then she 
summoned all her powers, and succeeded in moving. 
She told me that she had never suffered such agony in 
her life. Yet she gradually won the victory over her 
nerves, and was saved from the fate which had almost 
overwhelmed her. I have related this anecdote to show 
what the will can do to control the body ; but it has a 
moral significance. Some nervous invalids could not 
have done what she did, not because they were really 
more diseased, but because they had not previously 
trained their will to perfect obedience to duty. My 
friend had disciplined her will all her life. It was be- 
cause she had accustomed her body in health to obey 
the light tasks set it by her reason, that she was able to 
command its obedience when a feather would have turned 
the scale against her. 

Her act was the physical counterpart of what Matthew 
Arnold means when he says, — 

" We cannot kindle when we will 
The fire that in the heart resides, 
But tasks in hours of insight willed 
Can be in hours of gloom fulfilled." 

The power of will is sometimes thought to belong only 
to those who are highly developed mentally ; but one of 



1 66 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

the finest instances of it I have ever seen myself was in a 
little boy in a school for the feeble-minded. This child 
was about twelve years old when he was sent to the 
school, and at that time he had scarcely learned to talk. 
He had a curious fancy for a flat-iron. It is very com- 
mon for a feeble-minded child to have some such fancy, 
and as long as it is indulged it is almost impossible to 
teach him anything ; so that as soon as his teacher dis- 
covered his peculiarity, she took care not to allow him 
to see a flat-iron. Under these circumstances, he began 
to learn something, though slowly and with great diffi- 
culty. It soon appeared that ignorant and deficient as 
he was, he was docile and ambitious. These two quali- 
ties are very rare among children like him. But from 
time to time he would suddenly lapse into his old dense 
stupidity, and no longer seem to make any effort to 
emerge from it. This was usually caused by the sight 
of a flat-iron. Even the picture of one would make him 
look incredibly silly. Once for several weeks he re- 
mained inaccessible to all the efforts of his teacher, until 
she finally discovered the reason. He had found a flat- 
iron, which he kept in his desk. She took it away from 
him, and talked seriously with him. She did make him 
understand that he could not improve as long as he in- 
dulged his monomania. He shed many tears, for he 
had a terribly sincere ambition, though its flight was not 
high; still, when it came to the question of giving up 



THE TRAINING OF THE WILL. 167 

the flat-iron he could not consent; he thought he 
would rather keep it even if he never learned anything. 
It was however taken away, and gradually his own in- 
terest in his pursuits returned. They were simple pur- 
suits. He learned to build a block house, to draw the 
picture of a castle on the blackboard, to write his name, 
to string beads according to a definite pattern; he 
even began to learn to read. He made such steady 
progress that his teacher often gratified him by calling 
him a " big boy," — a term which he considered to con- 
vey the highest praise. 

At last, however, came another relapse. The teacher 
searched his desk and found nothing. She frowned upon 
him and called him a "little boy; " but all in vain. He 
wept, but continued to be silly and inattentive. Just as 
she was almost at the end of her truly sublime patience, 
however, he came up to her one day, hanging his head 
in a shamefaced way, and put into her hands a flat-iron 
without a handle which he had been secretly carrying 
about under his jacket. " Me not little boy any more," 
he said, with downcast eyes. She felt that in an instant 
the clouds had rolled away and the victory was won. 
And so it proved. He never again, of his own accord, 
touched a flat-iron, though sometimes he saw one acci- 
dentally, and it never failed to exert the old influence 
upon him. Two years later, by dint of infinite pains on 
the part of both his teacher and himself, he had learned 



1 68 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

to read a little in a primer ; but even then he could not 
speak plainly. "Now, Robert/' said his teacher, at the 
beginning of a new year, " it is time to pronounce your 
words clearly." Robert smiled and nodded. He stood 
up as he had been taught to do, placed his heels together 
at an angle of forty-five degrees, held up his head, threw 
his shoulders back, placed his book at exactly the right 
distance from his eyes, and was ready to begin. The 
teacher said afterwards that it was pathetic to see how 
perfectly he remembered everything she had taught him 
the year before, and how anxious he was to obey her to 
the letter. She said it humbled her to think that she was 
so much less eager to use her greater powers in the very 
best way. The first sentence in his lesson was, " The 
leaves are green." He could not pronounce the word 
" leaves ; " he called it " neeves." The teacher repeated 
it again and again, " L-eaves." " L-eaves are neen," 
said the boy, with the utmost care. "G-r-een," said 
the teacher, pronouncing the first letters phonetically. 
"G-r-een," said the boy, patiently. They went on so for 
a few minutes, when the teacher noticed that the child 
seemed to breathe with difficulty. " You need not read 
any more if you are tired," she said ; but the boy signified 
his desire to go on. He held himself erect, he did not 
falter, but she saw a dark and then an ashen look come 
over his earnest face. ''Robert," she said, "you are too 
tired to read ; we will leave the lesson till to-morrow." 



THE TRAINING OF THE WILL. 1 69 

But before it was time for the next day's lesson Robert 
was dead. He was dying when he had raised his head 
so erect, and had followed every tone of his teacher's 
voice so faithfully. It was simply by the power of his 
will that he had been able to go on. 

I have told Robert's story at length because it seems to 
me to show clearly what can be done by a will set to do the 
right. I think that Robert in his short life did a great 
work which most of us never accomplish fully, even with 
our greater gifts and advantages. He disciplined his will 
so that it did not fail him even at the extreme moment. 

Let me suggest some points in his story which may 
otherwise be overlooked. At first, he was really inca- 
pable of controlling himself. He did not know that a 
flat-iron did him any harm. Even when he did know 
it, he had not the moral power to give it up ; but when 
he was placed under the right training, and the flat-iron 
was taken away, he used all the little power he had in 
obeying his teacher and in learning the tasks set him. 
In this way he gained new power, till at last he had so 
increased his strength that he was able to make what was 
to him the supreme sacrifice. After that, all was easy. 
There was no longer any hindrance. His mental powers 
were no better than before. He could never advance 
very far, but he advanced steadily. There was never 
again a moment of halting. 

His teacher afterwards taught brighter pupils. '' It is 



I/O CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE, 

very hard for me to respect my scholars somethiies/' she 
said. " When I see how wiUing they are to waste their 
powers, and how satisfied to do only half their duties, I 
think of Robert. If he had been gifted as they are, he 
would have been a great man, a blessing to the world. 
But after all," she added, "I ought not to judge the 
children harshly. The difference between the bright and 
the dull is not so great as we think. I suppose these chil- 
dren cling to some pet habit which dwarfs their powers, 
just as. Robert clung to his fiat-iron, and it is not so easy 
for a teacher to find out what it is and take it away." 

We all need outside help. A part of the training of 
our will is to put ourselves under the control of those we 
know will insist on our doing right when we have not the 
strength do it ourselves. We ought to seek out the peo- 
ple who rouse our best aspirations, and to surround our- 
selves with those objects which nourish our highest 
moods. By and by we shall learn to do without them if 
we must. 

And there is, I believe, infinite help for all of us. If 
our whole soul is' set on the right, we shall be so in har- 
mony with the universe that everything — sorrow as well 
as joy — - will help us to do right. 

Let us begin, if we have not already begun, to culti- 
vate our will so that we shall be serene in the midst either 
of happy excitement or of annoyance, courageous when we 
see a hard duty before us, and active in doing our duty. 



XVI. 

JUSTICE AND TRUTH. 

'nr^HE best girls are prone to be unjust. Indeed, it is 
-■- hardly too much to say that injustice is the beset- 
ting sin of the majority of good girls. Girls whose as- 
pirations are the highest, whose wills are so disciplined 
that they do not hesitate a moment before any hard 
duty, who are full of love to God and man, fail here. 
This is partly because their feelings are strong, and 
mislead them ; but I believe • the great difficulty is that 
they have not learned to think. 

The mental training that forms the judgment is thus 
of direct moral value. I have no doubt that every one 
would admit that a thoroughly educated woman is usually 
a just woman, and a warm-hearted woman who has 
learned how to be just is the very flower of womanhood. 
A girl who has been taught accomplishments merely, 
though she may be very charming and lovable, often 
lacks the deep foundations on which a noble character 
must be reared. 



172 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

I have already given a chapter to the intellectual side 
of the question, and have suggested some of the means 
of learning to think. 

Now one great reason why we must learn to think is 
that we may be just. A girl may wonder what good it 
can do her to detect a fallacy in geometry, or to make a 
correct translation of a Latin poem, or to weigh the evi- 
dence for and against a scientific theory or a historical 
fact ; but every exercise of this kind helps to form such 
a habit of just thought that it will probably become 
harder and harder for her to join in careless gossip about 
an acquaintance. She will not be likely to condemn 
anybody easily on hearsay, but will always wish first to 
hear the other side. 

Fortunately for the dull girls, who find geometry and 
Latin and science beyond them, these are not the only 
subjects that train us to think justly. The most stupid 
girl can make a moral stand when she hears a bit of 
scandal. She may insist on suspending her judgment 
till she knows the truth. 

To think justly we must strive to know the whole 
truth about a subject ; to act justly we need only know 
that part of the truth which would influence our action. 

Mr. Clapp, the Shakspeare critic, says in one of his 
inspiring lectures on Macbeth that women in an emer- 
gency shut their eyes and act, refusing to see the truth ; 
while men keep their eyes open, but set their teeth and 



JUSTICE AND TRUTH. 1 73 

go on. Now, if we shut our eyes merely because we 
are not brave enough to do wrong without pretending it 
is right, we are abject creatures ; but if we shut them 
because we are deterrnined that a sight of the danger 
shall not keep us from doing rightj we hold ourselves to 
the highest justice. Our path, perhaps, is a narrow one 
between two precipices. We know there is a terrible 
abyss on each side. But there is no mistake about the 
path. Let us not weaken our powers by looking down at 
the horrors below, but fix our eyes on the sunlit summit 
to which the pathway leads. Many a girl finds her lot cast 
in a family where some member outrages all her sense of 
right. She fears perhaps even more than she knows. 
It would seldom be her duty to watch for facts to 
confirm her suspicions. Let her believe the best she 
possibly can about the wayward one, and love and cher- 
ish and honour all the good she sees, and if she is not 
self-righteous, she will be pretty sure to find a great 
deal of good even in one she must often condemn. 
Judgment here is not her duty. The only care she 
need have is not to lower her own standard. She has 
her own good life to lead, and it will not help her to 
think about the faults of anybody else. Moreover the 
less she thinks about these, the more likely she will be 
to help in amending them. 

Take these lines of Mrs. Browning to illustrate my 
meaning : — 



174 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

' She never found fault with you, never imph'ed 
Your wrong by her right ; and yet men at her side 
Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole tOAvu 
The children were gladder that pulled at her gown. 

My Kate ! " 

The mother of a family, however, must be willing to 
open her eyes to the faults of her children, because the 
knowledge will influence her in' training them. 

Or suppose a girl has to decide the question of mar- 
riage. It will not do for her to ignore her lover's faults. 
Suppose she suspects he drinks, or is dishonest in busi- 
ness, or leads an impure life, she would do very wrong 
to marry him without satisfying herself on these points. 
Even if she decides to marry him after her eyes are 
open, her attitude toward him must always be different 
in consequence of her knowledge. She can no longer 
hope that the two can develop side by side ; and though 
her deliberate object may be to raise her husband to her 
own level, she must always anxiously guard herself from 
falling to his. 

I hope this makes my meaning clear in saying that 
*' to act justly we need only know that part of the 
truth which would influence our action." If a girl fears 
that her father drinks, he is still her father, to be treated 
with all the love and honour she can give him ; but if 
her lover drinks, her chances of saving him are greater 
before marriage than after. Knowledge in this case 
changes her duty. 



JUSTICE AND TRUTH. 1 75 

Justice and truth are two sides of the same virtue. I 
do not beHeve that any of my readers ever intentionally 
tell a lie. I know that some girls do so, but they are not 
the girls who are interested in self-culture. Still, most 
of us are not perfectly truthful. Let us not deceive 
ourselves by thinking that we are, for then we shall never 
give ourselves the chance to improve. 

We have different temptations, and they do not assail 
us in the form we have prepared for ; accordingly, we 
yield before we quite know what we are doing. Is there 
one among us all who does not blush to think of some- 
thing she has done which she had not thought it possible 
for her to do? Even those of us who have reached 
middle age and who have striven all our lives to resist 
temptation seldom can look back many weeks without 
feeling ashamed of some insincere deed or word. 

I once knew a high-minded girl of good intellect who 
was too ambitious. Her geometry teacher put a great 
strain upon her pupils by giving them a book to study 
which contained full proofs of the propositions, but for- 
bidding them to read a word beyond the statements. 
It required special care to look at the figure and not see 
something more. " Oh, dear," sighed one of the class, 
" when we say the Lord's prayer in concert in the morn- 
ing, and come to the passage ' Lead us not into temp- 
tation,' I always think of the geometry lesson." Well, 
this temptation was too much for our heroine. She could 



176 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

not always prove the propositions for herself, and she 
could not bear to admit that she could not. She was 
a truthful girl, but after working herself nervous over a 
difficult theorem, she did sometimes let her eye wander 
down the page till she saw some enlightening reference. 
She tried to still her conscience by saying to herself that 
she did not really read the proof. So she won honours in 
her examination and went triumphantly on her course. But 
her heart was sore. Time passed on. She was about to 
graduate, and she could look back on four years of as 
fine work as had been done by any girl in school. At 
last, however, she could bear her trouble no longer. She 
went to her teacher and told the whole truth, feeling that 
if she were publicly expelled from the class, it would be 
better than to live with her fault unacknowledged. The 
punishment given her was that in the stress and hurry of 
commencement preparations she was obliged to take a 
wholly new geometry and work through every proposition 
in it for herself. To get the time for this, she had to 
relinquish her part in the commencement programme. 

I think such a confession showed strong moral power. 
I tell this story for two reasons, — to suggest that he 
''who thinketh he standeth'' still has need to ''take 
heed lest he fall," and that when we clearly admit that 
we have done wrong, we may — 

" rise on stepping stones 
Of [our] dead selves to higher things." 



JUSTICE AND TRUTH. 1 77 

If this young school-girl had said to herself, '' I did 
not tell a lie, I never do tell lies, I dare say other girls 
in the class looked at the proofs," and had so excused 
herself, she would have done what many of us do ; and 
by refusing to own that there was a blemish on the 
whiteness of her beautiful character, she would have be- 
come incapable of washing away the stain. She might 
have forgotten her fault and have enjoyed her class re- 
unions and the cordial welcome which her teachers gave 
her when she revisited her Alma Mater ; but who would 
not choose the suffering for the sake of her victory? 

I think all ambitious girls have a kindred temptation, 
though I do not mean that it often presents itself in just 
this form. But some of you are silently aware, if you 
are honest with yourselves, that you like to appear a 
little wiser, a little more learned, than you really are. 

We all conceal our defects of all kinds as much as 
we can, and we have a right to do this. It would be 
an injury to others as well as ourselves if we went 
about proclaiming our shortcomings. It is not a very 
good plan to talk much about ourselves even to our 
dearest friends. But there is a faint line dividing the 
reserve of self-control which leads us to try quietly to 
correct our faults instead of talking about them, and 
the reserve we practise for the sake of making others 
believe we are better than we are. No one but our- 
selves can decide where this line lies ; but if we aspire 

12 



178 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

to be truthful, we must take heed that we never go be- 
yond it. 

Another temptation to untruthfulness which besets 
many women comes from the desire to attract others. 
This is strongest in some of the loveliest characters, for 
a gracious woman who has tact can so easily say some- 
thing very sweet, yet not altogether untrue, which flat- 
ters her hearer, and reacts in making the speaker 
beloved and admired. Tact is a dangerous gift. Here, 
too, the dividing line between right and wrong is very 
faint. Bluntness is not necessarily truthful any more 
than flattery is. Every large-hearted, loving woman does 
really see a thousand good and delightful quaUties in 
those about her which the careless pass by unheeded. 
Her deep sympathy, too, often shows her that the need 
for recognition is very real to many, indeed to most of 
us, however firmly we may seem to stand alone, and she 
longs to give it. 

" Hast thou . . . 
. . . loved so well a high behaviour 
In man or maid that thou from speech refrained ? " 

Those who hve in this spirit are noble men and women. 
I often think of the words of a friend, " The best people 
are those we should n't be willing to let hear us praise 
them." And yet most of us cannot be our best without 
the warm nourishment of some genuine praise. Now, 
when the time comes for a woman — or a girl — to speak 



JUSTICE AND TRUTH. 1/9 

an appreciative word to one in need, how shall she be 
sure to say just enough and not too much ? For one 
thing, she must be careful to tell the truth ; and for 
another thing, she must keep her own longing for an 
appreciative word in return sternly in the background. 
Love begets love and appreciation appreciation ; but any- 
thing like a mutual admiration society is nauseating, and 
any interview which seems likely to end in that way must 
come to a peremptory close. 

Sometimes our heart so overflows with love and admir- 
ation of another that we cannot help speaking. It is not 
that the one to whom we speak needs our words, but that 
our gratitude for the blessing which comes to us out of 
the fulness of the life of our friend must have relief in 
expression. It is right for us to speak. But how doubly 
wrong it would be for us ever to simulate such a feeling ! 
How wrong to exaggerate the germs of such a feehng ! 

In questions of truth, there is danger of losing sight 
of moral perspective, to use a phrase of Dr. James 
Freeman Clarke. I remember a young lady who was so 
morbidly conscientious in the matter of speaking the 
truth that one night when a sick friend with whom she 
was watching asked her what time it was, she could not 
be contented till she had consulted several clocks, as well 
as her own watch, which she feared was not quite right, 
and then she said hesitatingly, -'It is about five — no, 



iSo CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

six — minutes past twelve!" Of course she wearied 
and annoyed the invalid, and though she was a truthful 
young lady, I do not think she was necessarily thoroughly 
truthful in feeling and action. I believe the chances are 
against her. No one can distort the conscience like that 
and still keep the balance which perfect justice requires. 
It is not the girls who exaggerate absurdly in their 
picturesque conversation who really misrepresent the 
truth, but those who lay on just enough of the false 
colouring to make us suppose that the colours are true. 
When Sam Weller talks about " double million magnifying 
glasses of hextra power," we do not feel any need of cor- 
recting his language in the interests of truth, even though 
we may hold the opinion that hyperbole is a figure of 
speech which must enter sparingly into elegant diction. 

Perhaps I have said too much of our temptations to 
falsehood and not much to help a girl to cultivate truth- 
fulness. Of course it is first necessary to understand our 
aim, and then if our will is disciplined, we shall be able 
to move steadily in the right direction. But I will make 
one or two suggestions. First, let us avoid temptation 
as far as we can. If a girl is tempted to look into her 
book while reciting a lesson, she must leave it in her 
desk. If she knows that her kind words to her friends 
are usually overkind it would be a good plan to avoid all 
personal conversation for a while. 



JUSTICE AND TRUTH. l8l 

Second, we can often help others in a negative way by 
avoiding embarrassing questions. All of us have affairs 
and even opinions which we have a perfect right to con- 
ceal ; but if anybody asks us a direct question about 
them, we are often in a cruel dilemma. We cannot tell 
a lie, and we cannot tell the truth. If we show any 
hesitation or say boldly that we do not wish to answer, 
that is often in itself a complete answer. A truthful 
woman — that is one who is truthful all the way through 
— loves truth in others as well as in herself, and she can 
often give efficient aid to her friends by abstaining from 
a question she wishes to ask. If it is about some deli- 
cate matter which she thinks her friend wishes encour- 
agement to confide to her she can easily make it clear 
that she would be glad of the confidence without putting 
a direct question. 

These suggestions are slight ; but the girls who are 
determined to be thoroughly truthful will have no diffi- 
culty in making others for themselves, and each one 
probably knows her own needs best. 



XVII. 

A SPIRIT OF LOVE. 

"XT OTHING is so great as love. We must have a 
-*- ^ loving spirit. But how can we make ourselves love 
anybody ; and who cares for forced love ? I cannot give 
much help here, but if I withheld the Httle I can give, 
I should feel that the rest of my words were as sounding 
brass and a tinkling cymbal. 

'^ Mamma says I must be sincere," said a fine young 
girl, " and when I ask her whether I shall say to certain 
people, ' Good-morning, I am not very glad to see you,' 
she says, ' My dear, you must be glad to see them, and 
then there will be no trouble.' " 

One thing is sure. We must realize that the spirit of 
love is essential to us, or we shall spend our strength on 
things not essential. I once knew a child who had no 
mark for absence or tardiness during a whole year at 
school. The energy and perseverance she showed in 
earning such a record are praiseworthy. But there was 
one day in the year when her brother was to set out on 
a long and dangerous journey. There was reason to 



A SPIRIT OF LOVE. 1 83 

think he might never come back. The child was full of 
grief at the parting, and yet she believed she ought to 
give up the last precious hours with him and go to school. 
It was heroic, but did she not put a false emphasis on 
punctuality ? She did not understand that love is greater 
than punctuality. Every other day in the year she had 
been right, but this day I believe she was wrong. 

When we once realize the need of a loving heart, what 
can we do to nourish it ? At least we must learn to be 
unselfish. As long as we think of ourselves and act for 
ourselves, love cannot have a luxuriant growth in us. 
Unselfishness is the key to this whole subject, and we 
learn it not from books, but by living. 

I remember a young lady who died long ago whose 
heart seemed to overflow with love to everybody in the 
world. Yet she had two or three strong antipathies ; she 
did not indulge herself in these, but set herself at work 
to overcome them. She was a teacher, and among her 
scholars was a young girl so wanting in tact that she made 
herself disagreeable to everybody. The teacher owned 
that she could hardly bear to speak to her even in the 
class ; but when she had owned it, she became aware 
that she was wrong, and she determined to change her 
feeling. She began by making a distinct effort every day 
to do some kindness to her pupil. She would not shrink 
from her any longer, but took special pains to meet her 
and talk with her. Much sooner than she had expected 



1 84 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

she found herself really caring for her protegee. The 
girl had many good traits, though they did not appear on 
the surface ; but as soon as the teacher began to know- 
her, they were evident. Of course the pupil became 
more passionately attached to her teacher than to any 
one else in the world, so that as a reward of her kindness 
the teacher was forced to be more kind, for the pupil 
followed her footsteps everywhere. Yet the teacher did 
not flinch. She even took the girl's cold, clammy hand 
— which she had once said, with a shudder, made her feel 
as if she had grasped a fish — in her own warm one, 
and seemed glad to give something of her own vitality to 
the forlorn young creature. 

I do not know whether such a victory would be possi- 
ble to all of us even if we had the courage and patience 
to fight with our prejudices so bravely. This teacher 
was deeply religious. She had a positive belief in the 
power of God to lift us above ourselves, and she defi- 
nitely prayed for help in her struggle. She did really 
win, for she truly loved the girl who had so repelled her. 

This is the strongest case of the kind that ever came 
to my personal knowledge. I think most of us are con- 
tented to drift along with our prejudices, and that we 
hardly try to conquer them. But if we could once be 
roused to believe that we ought to fight this battle and 
that we must win it, I am inclined to think that we 
could. There is -— 



A SPIRIT OF LOVE. 1 85 

" The possible angel that underlies 
The passing phase of the meanest thing." 

It is probably true that everybody has some good and 
lovable traits of character. At all events did any one 
ever sincerely try to find something good in another 
without succeeding? It is the "possible angel" we 
must look for, and there is probably no way of finding 
it so quickly as by active kindness. 

We need also to be kind in word and thought. All 
gossip about others' faults is unprofitable. Among the 
ignorant, it shows a vacant mind. There is even a worse 
form of it among the intellectual, — that of saying witty 
things of the foibles of our neighbors. Everybody has 
faults ; but it is seldom indeed that it is necessary to 
mention them, and it would be humihating if we had 
nothing better to think about. The habit of saying and 
thinking the best that is true of all our acquaintances 
would change our attitude toward the world. Who of 
us does not fail here? 

But who cares to be loved from a sense of duty? It 
is very well to try to love other people, but do we want 
them to try to love us ? If we resent that, it is all the 
more necessary for us to be so lovable that nobody can 
help loving us. 

What is it to be lovable ? 

I know a handsome, healthy boy who plays foot-ball 

with a will, swims like a fish, and rides like an Indian. I 



1 86 CHATS WITH GH^LS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

have never known him to come into a room which he 
did not brighten by his presence. His radiant smile 
seems to kindle an answering flash on every countenance. 
His clear laugh puts everybody in good spirits ; he likes 
to do kind acts ; he is always preparing some delightful 
surprise for somebody ; he is at leisure when his mother 
wants an errand done, and thinks it only fun to run a 
mile for a spool of thread ; he is absolutely without 
self-consciousness ; he is lovable, and everybody adores 
him. Here health and vigour supplement an unselfish 
heart. The moral I draw from him is that if we wish to 
be lovable, we should first be unselfish, and second, do 
our best to be well. We shall not all succeed in being 
as charming as he is j but we may have a degree of suc- 
cess, and at least we shall make others happier, whether 
we win their regard or not. 

I know a lovable young girl who is very poor. She is 
upright and industrious and sensitive ; but she is also so 
loving and grateful that everybody likes to help her. 
The most commonplace kindness makes her beam with 
delight. She loves everybody and thinks everybody is ac- 
tuated by the noblest motives. She wishes she could help 
others. As a matter of fact, she always gives more than 
she receives, though her gifts are intangible, and neither 
she nor her friends recognize them as gifts. But she 
clears the atmosphere wherever she goes. Haughty 
young women who snub half their associates unbend to 



A SPIRIT OF LOVE. 1 8/ 

her. It is so impossible for her to conceive that any 
one can be capable of snubbing her, that she gives a 
warm greeting to these stately belles, and they thaw be- 
fore they have time to remember their dignity. I do 
not mean that she ever forces herself upon anybody. She 
is peculiarly thoughtful in such ways ; but when she does 
meet any one, her instincts are so generous and noble 
that she does not stop for the moment of suspicion 
which wrecks so many good but self-conscious girls, be- 
fore her glorious smile shines out and her eager voice 
speaks a welcome. If she had a million dollars she 
would greet a poor girl in that way, and she simply can- 
not conceive that all the girls who have a milHon do not 
feel as she does. 

The vitality of her temperament no doubt adds to her 
charm. If her blood were more sluggish, she might 
pause for the one fatal moment, and after she had seen 
the cool face before her clearly it would be too late to 
smile. And yet these proud young girls who are contri- 
buting to her education (and feel themselves much 
puffed up by their charitable deeds) love the sweetness 
of that smile, and go away glowing with the sense of their 
own graciousness. They are glad that she makes them so 
gracious, and they love her. Well, we cannot make our 
own temperament; but if we sometimes remembered 
what it is to be lovable, we might occasionally find out 
the way. If we cannot do this, we must not resent the 



1 88 CHATS WITH GH^ILS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

endeavours of other people to love us from a sense of 
duty. But need we resent them ? Do we not really 
wish that others would look for the good in us instead of 
magnifying the bad? After all, I do not believe we are 
likely to quarrel with any one who tries to cultivate the 
spirit of love, even if the effort has to be directed toward 
ourselves. We should object no doubt to any conde- 
scension ; but those who are sincerely trying to be large- 
hearted have not much time to think of their own 
superiority, and so they cannot condescend. 

At all events, we can love others, and that is even 
better than to be loved by them, though we do not be- 
lieve it. Even in the case of the love between men and 
women, the same thing is true, though it is not my 
duty to speak of it. There is nothing finer in all 
George Eliot's novels than what she says of Will Ladis- 
law's love for Dorothea. His supreme happiness came 
from the perception that here v/as a creature worthy 
of being perfectly loved. I think if girls always kept 
that standard of love before them, there would be fewer 
silly love-affairs, and fewer miserable marriages. Per- 
haps there would be fewer marriages of any kind, but 
those that did take place would bring a deeper happiness. 

Do we love even those we love best with full measure ? 
We depend on them, and enjoy them, and cannot endure 
their loss ; but all that may fall short of love. It is pos- 
sible to cling very closely to our friend in a weak and 



A SPIRIT OF LOVE. 1 89 

selfish way. It is an overflowing heart which gives as 
freely as it takes. 

Can we not enter more completely into the lives of 
those dear to us? Can we not prune our own selfish 
fancies so that instead of demanding everything from our 
friends, we may give without stint to them? 

There is a peril in an intellectual hfe. It is easy to be 
so absorbed in study that we forget to live. Educated 
women are more just than the ignorant, and, on the 
whole, they love quite as well, though more wisely. In- 
deed, I remember once hearing a thoughtful woman say, 
*' I have noticed that none of the intellectual women I 
know are as famous as they promised to be, and the 
reason is that they always sacrifice their intellect to their 
family." 

In spite of this verdict, some of us must be conscious 
that even when we are ready to make sacrifices on a 
large scale, we do allow ourselves to be so occupied with 
books and thought that we have no space to expand with 
a warm, fresh life, which would be a far greater blessing 
to our friends than many of our weary sacrifices. We 
easily wear out in the search for knowledge, and even in 
trying to do our duty our strength fails us ; but there is 
a quickening principle in love which restores our powers. 

It takes time to love. It is true that love is not 
bounded by time. Our hearts may be swelling with love 
while we are doing the most trivial things. The little 



190 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

girl, to whom time seems unlimited, who begs to make a 
pudding to surprise papa at dinner, is alive with love to 
her very finger-tips even while she is beating the eggs 
and mixing the butter and sugar ; and the young lady 
who is taking lessons at the cooking-school to fit herself 
to add comfort to the life of the young man she has just 
become engaged to, will work over her recipes with an 
ardour which transfigures them to poems. No doubt 
there is many an overburdened mother, who has not a 
minute to herself from sunrise to sunset, whose drudgery 
is happiness, because it is a means of expression of the 
love within her for those who are to wear the clothes she 
makes and to live in the rooms she sweeps. Whenever 
we are doing mechanical work, even when it is not done 
for those we love, our thoughts are free, and we may 
give them to our friends, though it is not true that all 
hand-workers do thus employ themselves. But with in- 
tellectual work it is different. To study, we must not 
only be alone and silent, but we must be absorbed in 
what we are doing. Even if the aim of our work is 
the good of others, we cannot think of them while we 
are doing it ; and if we work hard, we become more and 
more involved in our studies and perhaps less and less 
able to shake off their yoke. 

There was once a woman who had occasion to sup- 
port several invalid relatives. She loved them, but their 
personal care did not fall upon her. She could however 



A SPIRIT OF LOVE. IQl 

earn a large salary as a teacher, and she cheerfully de- 
voted this to their needs. But she could not hold her 
fine position without arduous study. Every moment was 
crowded. One day she was on her way to take a lesson 
from a distinguished professor when a dirty little boy 
begged for some money to buy food. She shook her 
head hastily and hurried on. There were several reasons 
for doing this : the authorities of the city had earnestly 
requested that no alms should be given on the street ; 
she was in a great hurry, and it would have delayed her 
to investigate the story and see that the child was placed 
under proper care ; and her purse was almost empty. 
When she had gone about a block farther, she suddenly 
stopped. It flashed across her mind that the boy might 
really be suffering ; that it might have been in her power 
not only to help him at the moment, but to find out 
something about him, and so place him where his whole 
life might be the better in consequence. She knew how 
improbable all this was, still it was possible, and she felt 
that the responsibility was hers. She looked back, but 
the boy had disappeared. She thought that she ought 
not to have refused such an appeal from a child mechani- 
cally. If he were an impostor at that age, it was all the 
more necessary that some one should look after him ; 
if not, poor as she was, she could spare a few cents 
for him. Her time was more precious even than her 
money; but she could have stopped five minutes, and 



192 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

if she had still been in doubt as to his truthfulness, 
she could have bought some rolls for him and superin- 
tended his eating them. She bitterly regretted that 
absorption in her own thoughts had led her to form 
the habit of doing mechanically what she should have 
done intelligently, though the pressure in her life came 
almost wholly from her acknowledgment of the claims 
of others. 

She told me that she had little fear for the boy. She 
thought she should have refused the money in the end ; 
but she could not get over the shock of finding that 
callous spot in her character. 

When we are absorbed in thought petty interruptions 
are almost unendurable, and none of us can be too care- 
ful not to disturb others in this way ; but every time we 
suffer ourselves to give way to irritation when we are 
interrupted, it is an admission that thought is more to us 
than life, and that intellect is more than love. I do not 
mean, of course, that we should allow many interruptions 
from children and others whom it is our duty to train in 
habits of thoughtfulness ; but that where we have no such 
duty or right, there can hardly be better discipline for 
us than the constant remembrance that nothing we are 
trying to learn can be worth quite so much as the power 
to enter sweetly into the little needs and wishes of 
others. 



A SPIRIT OF LOVE. 193 

The distribution of our time has a more far-reaching 
influence in cultivating the spirit of love than we at first 
think. No one who is free to choose should plan to fill 
the whole day with rigid occupations. There are few 
who can afford five hours of solid study. Yet some are 
so placed that they usually have that time to spare, and 
they may fall into the habit of employing it in study. In 
such a case, it would be a good plan to arrange regular 
work for four hours, and then lay aside some interesting 
book that could be snatched up at odd moments to be 
read in the remaining hour. Then if a whole hour 
should be wasted in interruptions, the main work of each 
day would go on easily. So, if we usually have an hour 
to study we may make the last quarter of it elastic. 

We want plenty of time for the larger interruptions of 
life, to have real conversation with our real friends as 
well as a pleasant word for a new acquaintance, to write 
letters that tell something of what we are thinking to 
those we used to love but who are drifting away from 
us because life presses so on all sides. Those who can 
choose must never let their friends go even when the 
margin of choice is narrow. A woman who earns her 
living has a struggle to decide whether she will give her 
little leisure to study or to her friends. If some of 
her friends will study with her, it may be the solution 
6f the question, though the best study requires silence 
and solitude ; and she need not make many new friends. 

13 



194 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

But if she takes all her leisure for study her heart will 
wither within her. 

When I say that we must be generous in giving our 
time to others if we ever hope that love in us may grow 
to be a vigorous plant, I do not mean that we should 
give time to gossip. I know sisters and friends who 
spend most of their time together in reading aloud to 
save themselves from talking over other people ad nau- 
seam. It is as bad to give too much time to our friends 
as too little. Interchange of thought and experience 
and life is good ; but when the conversation begins to 
grow weak, it is time for silence, and perhaps it is time 
to be alone. In the distribution of time, one reason 
that we must give a part of it to mental culture is that 
we may have something to say worth saying when the 
time comes to speak. 

There can never be fine culture of any kind while we 
are in a hurry. We have a right to be busy — indeed if 
we are strong and well, every moment of our day may 
be filled to the brim ; but for that very reason, because 
we wish to enjoy the full richness of every moment, we 
cannot afford to hurry over it to the next. 

Quiet and leisure to think over and enjoy our books, our 
music, and our pictures is necessary before they really be- 
come part of ourselves. Unless our culture is thoroughly 
assimilated, it is not culture at all. It is a good thing to 



A SPIRIT OF LOVE. 195 

look at the sky once a day if we can do no more, but 
we want whole days in the open air, when we feel — 

" Oh, what have I to do with time ? 
For this the day was made." 

But hurry soils the heart even more than the intellect. 
We may win a fact for use even when pushing along post- 
haste ; but if we love our friends, we must be wilhng to 
linger over the thought of them, and we certainly ought 
not to be too busy to be glad to see them. 

Sympathy is an essential part of love. I have long 
thought that true sympathy was an intellectual quality. 
The very best of sympathy is perhaps independent of 
the intellect, for a child or even an animal may show 
that it suffers with you, simply because it loves you. But 
while we welcome the sympathy of a child who cannot 
understand our trouble, most of us are irritated by the 
incompetent pity of older people who ought to compre- 
hend our position, but who get no further than to be 
sorry for our suffering whether we are right or wrong. I 
know that some of the most sympathetic people are far 
from being learned, — indeed there is always danger 
that learning will choke the growth of sympathy ; but 
it is by using the powers of thought, memory, and imagi- 
nation in entering into the trials and problems of other 
people that we are finally able to put ourselves in their 
places and feel intelligently for them. Then, as we are 



196 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

not blinded by personal feeling, we may often see the 
right course more clearly than our suffering friend, and 
be able to give the wise and firm support needed at this 
crisis. 

Intellectual sympathy with all about her, it seems to 
me, is one of the highest aims a girl who desires self- 
culture can set before herself. Here is a worthy object 
to occupy the strongest mind. It is when an intellectual 
girl spends herself on lower studies altogether that she 
becomes a pedant. 

Sympathy with all about her, I have said. Can we 
love everybody? Do we not weaken ourselves in the 
attempt to love everybody? Can there be any enthusi- 
asm in love that is divided among so many people ? Can 
we love anybody very rapturously when we love so many ? 
In answer, I will say that among the women I know — 
and I dare say the same is true of men — those who 
have shown the most intense love for a few friends are 
also those who have given the largest measure of gener- 
ous affection to everybody they have come in contact 
with, from the servant in the kitchen to the fellow-trav- 
eller of a day whom they are never to see again. 

Dante tells us again and again that love is the one 
thing that is inexhaustible. The more we love the more 
we can love. The more that we are loved, the more we 
can love in return, for '^ he that loveth is born of God/' 
and has a part in what is infinite. 



XVIII. 
THE CHOICE OF COMPANIONS. 

IT is fatal to growth to confine ourselves to one set 
of companions, even if they are good and intellect- 
ual and refined. The world is large, and no one circle 
absorbs all the goodness and intellect and refinement 
within the reach of its members, if they are only willing 
to step sometimes beyond its boundary. A new stand- 
point shows us new virtues even in our particular 
friends. But the worst effect of exclusiveness is that at 
last we come to believe that our centre is the centre 
of the universe. The exclusive spirit does not belong 
to aristocrats alone. I wonder if there is one among 
us so free from it as to be qualified to cast the first 
stone. The Boston servants who cannot think of taking 
a situation except on the Back Bay usually require more 
credentials from a new acquaintance than their mis- 
tresses do. We all know plenty of religious people who 
will have nothing to do with the worldly, plenty of in- 
tellectual people who take pride in avoiding society, and 
farmers who look down upon the city boarders quite as 
much as the city boarders look down upon them. 



198 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

Nevertheless; the choice of our companions has an 
overwhelming effect on our culture, and especially with 
those of us who are more influenced by persons than 
by books. 

For instance, none of us can afford to mingle with 
coarse people until our own refinement is assured. 
When we reach that point, the coarseness will repel 
us ; but we may be able to see good and attractive 
traits in coarse people, and while our superior refine- 
ment may help them, their goodness may help us still 
more. 

With little children, it is right to take great care that 
they should have only the best companions. Until 
they have judgment enough to decide what is good and 
what is bad in those about them, it is dangerous for 
them to come in contact with the bad at all; though 
on the other hand, if they are kept entirely apart from 
others, they can hardly be saved from selfishness, — which 
is worse than the vices they escape. A mother often 
has to choose between two evils for her child ; but at 
least she should always make sure that its care is given 
only to a good and trustworthy person. 

When a girl is old enough to choose her own friends, 

how shall she choose ? She is generally guided by her 

likes and dislikes. She says with the girl in the ballad, — 

" The reason why I cannot tell ; 
I only know and know full well, 
I do not like you, Dr. Fell." 



THE CHOICE OF COMPANIONS. I99 

I have never been able to find fault with this principle, 
though I hope most girls are not drawn together, as 
some are, simply because their sleeves are cut alike. 
Even if we all looked about and selected the most 
suitable person we know for a companion, and decided 
to love her best, do you think we should succeed? 
The fact that we are attracted by one rather than an- 
other does usually mean that that one in some way 
belongs to us. 

The better we are ourselves, the more likely we are 
to love the good. But then, suppose we are not very 
good, and we are conscious that our friends hinder in- 
stead of help us? What are we to do if we are 
aware that we are very easily led by those about us? 
This is a hard question, but one which every girl must 
answer. 

I do not believe any girl is so unfortunate as not to find 
that there is at least one among her friends who helps 
her. Let her cling to that one, if to no other. Or if 
there is one among them whom she knows she helps, 
she must be sure to cling to that one. 

But what can be done about the friends that hinder? 
Is n't it rather selfish, just for the sake of our own im- 
provement, to cast off those who love us ? That is the 
way many generous girls feel, though they may not like 
to say so to their parents or their teachers, who beg them 
to be more careful of their associates. 



200 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

It would be a fine thing if we could determine not to 
be hindered ; if instead of that, we could help th^ friend 
who is now hindering us. Sometimes that is possible. 
Suppose we have already chosen our friend and cannot 
give her up, even if we want to do so, without causing 
her pain. We are in no such dilemma about books. We 
can give up the trash we have been reading without 
hurting anybody. We can fortify ourselves with the 
best of companions in books. As we improve, if there 
is anything genuine in our friendship, our friend will per- 
haps improve with us. If she does not, the bond between 
us will grow weaker and gradually disappear of itself. 

But alas ! there are many very weak girls who have 
not decision enough to try such a remedy. They would 
be good girls if they had good friends; but with silly 
companions they are very silly girls. I fear there is no 
help for such except in obeying their wiser guardians. 
Any girl who is conscious that one of her friends is lead- 
ing her to do wrong or to have wrong thoughts, and who 
knows she is not strong enough to lead instead of being 
led, must humbly give up her companion. Suppose she 
hurts her friend's feelings. It may rouse the one who is 
hurt as nothing else could do. 

Occasionally two girls at boarding-school who know 
they are too weak to help each other will talk the matter 
over and petition not to be allowed to room together, but 
to be put with wiser room-mates. In the end they love 



THE CHOICE OF COMPANIONS. 201 

each other all the better for the change which helps both 
of them to be better worth loving. 

But we do not by any means have complete choice m 
the matter of companions. We cannot escape associa- 
tion with a great many people whom we do not even 
fancy. For this reason I feel like insisting all the more 
on what I have said before, — that we must use all our 
strength to rise above ourselves without the help of 
others. We must be our best whether those about us 
are their best or not. Perhaps we can help them up ; 
at all events we must not let them drag us down. If we 
are not first self-reliant, I am afraid we shall never be fit 
to choose any companion. And we ought to choose, in 
spite of all I have said about our right to be guided by 
our natural likings ; and the more difficult it is to escape 
from most of our associates, the more important it is to 
choose well where we have any choice. 

The one law is to choose the best. But who are the 
best, — those who minister to us or those to whom we 
can minister? 

I know a woman who has always chosen well. She 
has friends in all parts of the world and in all grades of 
society. If I tell you something about them perhaps it 
will make the whole subject clearer. 

When she was a school-girl she was naturally attracted 
to two or three of the best girls in her class, — one was 
the best scholar, another the most high-minded, and 



202 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

another, though dull enough, was the neatest and sweet- 
est of them all. She cared also for two of the teachers, — 
one the oldest and wisest, the other the youngest and 
freshest of the corps. She had two or three friends also 
among the little girls whom she was able to help. She 
was on good terms with almost everybody in school, and 
never failed in courtesy and kindness ; but she did not 
make sudden or intimate friendships. She talked freely 
perhaps to one of the girls and to one of the teachers. 
When she left school and went back to her home in the 
city, she was at once surrounded by a large class of cul- 
tivated people. She liked society, and went to parties 
when she had time ; but the special friends she chose for 
herself were not those who shone most in such assemblies. 
One, to be sure, was a brilliant society woman, the most 
accomplished and most beautifully dressed woman of the 
circle, who could dance all night and be as fresh as a rose 
in the morning, and whose wit and grace never failed- 
Our heroine admired this woman as she admired all 
things perfect of their kind ; but she never would have 
made a friend of her if she had not seen in her a large, 
full, unselfish nature, lifted above trivialities, even when 
she was doing the most trivial things. 

Another of her friends was a woman then studying 
medicine, who afterwards became a physician with a 
world-wide reputation ; another was a young society 
fellow whose dominant interest in life was music; 



THE CHOICE OF COMPANIONS. 203 

another was a rich young lady who held the opinion that 
a woman should support herself, and went daily to her 
work in a counting-room. 

In the ■ meantime her interest in those outside her 
circle was increasing. She had a few lessons in German 
from a shy old professor very much out at the elbows, 
who had such a power of inspiring her with high thoughts 
that he became her life-long friend. She found that her 
milliner was a cultivated woman, who when she went to 
Paris, studied the pictures of the Louvre as much as she 
did the fashions, and she made a friend of her. The 
newsboy who delivered papers at the door proved to 
have a real taste for the drama. She gave him substan- 
tial help in his education ; but more than that, she was 
his sympathetic friend, and in reading Shakspeare with 
him she received as much help as she gave. 

She boarded one summer in a fisherman's home on 
one of those lonely islands along the coast of Maine, and 
she found the fisherman's wife a true companion, a 
woman not only of sweetness and integrity, but a thinker 
without books, and one who saw and felt the glory of 
the world without requiring an artist to point it out 
to her. 

At the South she came in contact with a negro woman 
who had been a slave, and whose life had been full of 
those terrible tragedies of which the simplest account 
makes the blood run cold. This woman by force of 



204 CHATS WITH GH^LS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

character had won peace out of suffering, and had some- 
thing to give to others well worth giving. 

In Austria my friend met a charming woman in a rail- 
way train, and the two proved to have so many points of 
character and thought in common, that they formed a 
permanent friendship. This new acquaintance turned 
out to be a countess. 

In Italy my friend found a young gid in a wretched 
hovel, among ignorant peasants, who showed such natu- 
ral powers that it seemed worth while to educate her. 
My friend said she had never known greater refinement' 
of feeling or truer poise of character in any lady of the 
land. 

Now why did this one woman discover these remarka- 
ble people everywhere ? The rest of us go through the 
world and think our companions very commonplace. It 
was because she had those qualities in herself that called 
out a response from the best in others. 

" The pedigree of honey 

Does not concern the bee. 
A clover any time to him 
Is aristocracy." 

She was a quiet, rather reserved woman, though she had 
an easy grace in conversation which always pleased. She 
cared deeply for beauty and delicacy, but she was abso- 
lutely unworldly. Nothing attracted her which was 
not genuine, and she had a nature large enough to 



THE CHOICE OF COMPANIONS. 205 

perceive what was genuine even when it wore an uncouth 
disguise. 

We ought to choose the best companions. But is it 
not clear that even the weakest girl cannot shield her- 
self from responsibility by saying she is too easily led 
by those she loves? We can never choose our friends 
aright until we ourselves become worthy of worthy 
friends. Our friends do help us ; but we have no right 
to require it of them, and no right to be a drag upon 
them. We must learn to help ourselves, and then we 
can in turn help others, and be fit to receive help from 
them. 

The lady I have been describing used to say, "The 
happiest friendships are not those where we take every- 
thing or give everything, but where we both give and 
take." 



XIX. 

THE MEANING OF OUR CULTURE TO 
OTHERS. 

HALF a century ago, the girls working in the Lowell 
mills gave one of the finest examples ever seen 
of "plain living and high thinking." At present a girl 
who had to work in a factory from twelve years old to 
twenty would feel herself defrauded of culture. But 
these Lowell girls show them how little depends on 
circumstances and how much on themselves. One of 
these girls wore out Watts's " Improvement of the 
Mind " by carrying it about in her working- dress pocket ; 
others studied German in the evening, though their 
hours of labour were from daylight till half past seven 
at night ; they held Improvement Circles, and published 
a magazine or two. They were high-minded and re- 
fined, not afraid of drudgery, but determined to make 
their way to something beyond it. Many of them loved 
beauty and appreciated the sweep of the fair blue 
Merrimac under the factory windows. In their homes, 
with all the frugality, the atmosphere was fragrant with 
peace and integrity. 

No material help that can be given to a girl forced to 



MEANING OF OUR CULTURE TO OTHERS. 207 

do hard work can equal such an example. Most of these 
factory girls succeeded in their hopes. They earned 
their education ; they became teachers, writers, artists ; 
they often married men of wealth and standing, and 
many of them now hold important positions in society. 
Other women may give time and strength and money to 
support a working-girls' club ; but these women can give 
something far better. The girls only need to look at 
them to see what working-girls may become, and they no 
longer feel that they liave any right to despair because 
their conditions are hard. 

Miss Lucy Larcom, in her exquisite '' New England 
Girlhood," by describing her own life in the Lowell mills 
has made every reader feel how far-reaching is all genuine 
culture, though perhaps she did this unconsciously. Her 
frankness in speaking of this life puts work on a true and 
dignified basis, and furnishes an ideal that must help 
every girl who can be helped by anything. 

I remember a delightful young teacher in a boarding- 
school who had a love for beauty that was like a sixth 
sense. It seemed as if every girl in school caught some 
glow of the heavenly flame from her, though she simply 
went her way unconscious of her influence. One morn- 
ing she looked out of her third-story window and saw 
the world wrapped in snow. The storm had ceased, but 
the paths were yet unbroken. She thought of the beauty 
of the woods that encircled the town, and it seemed to 



208 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

her necessary that everybody should see it. She said so 
to the principal of the school when they met at break- 
fast, and suggested that lessons should be given up for the 
morning. The principal smiled thoughtfully. It had 
not occurred to her that the lessons could be given up ; 
but she was a woman of large mind, and she saw at once 
that a sleigh-ride through those wonderful forest aisles 
would do more to elevate the girls than anything they 
could learn from books. A lovely pale light was break- 
ing through the clouds and touching the arches of the 
elms as the happy party set off. There was plenty of 
fun during the morning, and yet this penetrating into the 
beautiful mystery of the untouched sanctuary of the snow 
was as a consecration to these light-hearted girls. They 
came home quietly, and studied faithfully through the 
short winter afternoon. And they never forgot the 
vision. I do not suppose that the teacher had any 
thought of doing good. She acted from the impulse of 
a nature so in harmony with beauty that she felt instinct- 
ively that the moment had come to look beyond books 
at a revelation of the divine. Yet it would hardly be too 
much to say that every girl in school was more sensitive 
to beauty all her life for what many people would have 
considered that unreasonable holiday. We must indeed 
try to help others directly, and yet the best help of all 
always comes to them not from what we do or say but 
from what we are. 



MEANING OF OUR CULTURE TO OTHERS. 209 

" How will you endure life in that stupid little place? " 
asked one young lady about to graduate from college of 
a classmate whose family ties made it necessary for her 
to settle down in a small village ; " you will not have one 
companion of your own age." "Oh," said the other, 
serenely, " I have plenty of old friends there, and it 
would be a pity if my education was of no use to them. 
I mean to start a reading- circle, and a natural history 
club, and a class for art study, and one thing and 
another." 

"In other words, you mean to teach your acquaint- 
ances," said her friend, rather scornfully. 

" I '11 teach them what I can," replied the other, cheer- 
fully. " Of course I ought to do that, after having had a 
chance to learn ; but you don't realize how bright those 
young people are ! If we read Shakspeare together, for 
instance, I shall know most of what the critics think, but 
I dare say they will make more original suggestions than 
I shall." 

"Then you don't mean to do missionary work, after 
all." 

" No, indeed ; but I don't mean to rust out. I want 
to enjoy myself and I want to go on with my education ; 
and that is what the others want, too, though they have 
not been so fortunate as I have. We shall help each 
other." 

It seems to me that this young lady was more generous 

14 



210 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

than if she had definitely proposed to do missionary 
work among her uncultivated friends, for she was more 
humble and less self-conscious. No one can doubt that 
her companions themselves would approve of her spirit, 
or that she would accomplish more than if she had 
looked down upon them from a height. 

If we rise, we must take others with us, instead of shak- 
ing ourselves loose from them. Otherwise there can 
be no real elevation of character. Even intellectually 
the contact with minds differently trained from our own 
is an advantage. We discover what is real and what 
is merely traditional in our culture. 

In America, at least, there are always to be found 
two or three people in every country town far more 
highly cultivated than the rest. It is sometimes rather 
hard for them to overlook the differences between 
themselves and those around them. They are shocked 
at the want of refinement they see everywhere. They are 
tired of village gossip. So they sigh for more con- 
genial society. Now, while it is true that a friend or 
two of their own degree of culture would be a means 
of great happiness and refreshment to them, it is not 
true that their lives may not be full of interest and in- 
spiration. The people talk gossip because nothing else 
is provided for them to talk about. Surely an edu- 
cated woman ought to be clever enough to introduce 
some higher subject of conversation which would not 



MEANING OF OUR CULTURE TO OTHERS. 211 

be beyond the range of the company. If the young 
graduate I have quoted carried out her plans, it is 
easy to see that in her circle at least there would be 
new topics for discussion, and every member of every 
one of her clubs ought to be a new centre for healthful 
development. Twenty families might easily get an im- 
pulse from her unpretending resolution not to rust out. 
As for refinement, that grows gradually by contact 
with the refined. Now, suppose all the refined people 
could shut themselves up in a beautiful garden hidden 
from the rest of the world by a high fence, would it show 
that they loved refinement, or simply that they loved 
themselves? If they really loved refinement, I think 
they would not be satisfied without scattering its seeds 
far and wide. 

So it is with the things of the intellect. What is their 
charm for us? Ought it not to be the delight of con- 
stantly finding out more and more of truth and beauty? 
If it is so then how can we be contented without show- 
ing the vision to everybody who is willing to look at it? 
If we alone have climbed to the hilltop whence we may 
see the rising sun, how strange that we should waste a 
moment in regretting that we are alone when we might 
be cheerfully calling to those groping in the darkness 
below to come up to us ! Suppose we should stand on 
the summit, and instead of fixing our eyes on the sun- 
rise, should look down in scorn on our old companions 



212 CHATS WITH GIRLS ON SELF-CULTURE. 

at the base of the moiintam. Suppose we spent our 
time in admiring our own strength and swiftness, and 
began to be jealous the moment we saw a fellow-traveller 
approaching ! What would the sunrise be to us ? It is 
not those who love the things of the intellect who fail to 
love their neighbour, — it is those who love themselves. 
In these days when we have so many opportunities to 
take a broad glance at the world, when we are oppressed 
and overwhelmed at the thought of the poverty and misery 
of so many of our fellow-creatures, most educated girls 
long to do something to raise the poor and ignorant. 
They are ready, if need be, to live in the midst of the 
slums in the hope of giving cheer to the suffering, and 
of furnishing an ideal to the low. This is well. But all 
cannot do the same work. Many a girl feels herself 
stranded for a time at least among merely commonplace 
people. Every one who cultivates herself finds herself 
raised above some of her old associates. This is as true 
of the rich as of the poor. Such a girl fancies she has 
nothing in common with those about her, and that she 
can do nothing for them. Both fancies are false. Prob- 
ably her great opportunity has come to her, and she does 
not see it. If she were not so certain of her superiority 
to her companions, and would meet them simply, giving 
them her best, or at least the best they would take, she 
would soon see they were not so commonplace as she 
had thought, and they would find themselves lifted above 



MEANING OF OUR CULTURE TO OTHERS. 213 

their ordinary plane. Generally it will be found that 
everybody is ready for our best, however they may slight 
and deride our second best. 

Our culture has a meaning to our dear friends, to those 
whom we regard as our equals and most delightful com- 
panions, and to those whom we love and reverence as 
far above us. The touch of a friendly hand often holds 
us on a high level when if our friend wavered, we should 
sink with her. Often two girls find great enjoyment in 
pursuing grand studies together when either alone would 
drift with the current and fritter away the day in triviali- 
ties. You can all think of some friend, no wiser in books 
than you are, who has helped you unspeakably by her 
fine ideals. And do you not also know some one you 
count inferior — perhaps some child — who has forced 
you to be your best by loving what is best in you ? Then 
you can see how you too may help those you honour. 

Self-culture is not selfish. It is a duty and it is a well- 
spring of happiness within the heart. One who has 
true culture is a radiant point from which beams of light 
flow out, shedding a blessing on the world. 



THE END. 



